“Fear of Music” by the Talking Heads

A transcendent alternative LP turns 45.

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Welcome to a new edition of the Best Music of All Time newsletter!

Today’s music pick marks the 45th anniversary of arguably the greatest transition album ever made.

Genre: New Wave, Post-Punk, Alternative

Label: Sire

Release Date: August 3, 1979

Vibe: 🛸

“My friend Brian Eno suggested we use a nonsense poem by a Dada artist as the lyrics for this song,” said David Byrne in 2021 before launching into a live performance of “I Zimbra,” the incredible opening track from the Talking Heads’ 1979 album, Fear of Music, on Stephen Colbert’s late-night show. Byrne remarked that said artist, Hugo Ball, and others like him were using nonsense “to make sense of a world that didn’t make sense.” The whole premise of a nonsense poem is to question whether words actually convey any meaning at all. You need only look at populist political and religious discourse to see that hive-mind ideologies aren’t that much more put together than random words strung together one after another.

That mindset is what separates Fear of Music from everything that came before it in the band’s catalog. Though they’d trafficked in dark subject matter before (see “Psycho Killer”), this record is more ominous and, lyrically, much more paranoid about the state of our world. Over instrumentals inspired as much by Afrobeat legends like Fela Kuti as they are by funk, disco, and alt-rock, Byrne sings about various life-threatening scenarios, from a potential romantic relationship (“Paper”) to the oxygen that keeps us alive (“Air”). On the latter, he remarks, “Some people say not to worry about the air/Some people never had experience with [air],” a prime example of the (perhaps unintentional) deadpan humor that would fuel future hits with disaffected protagonists, like “Once in a Lifetime.”

Fear of Music came after More Songs About Buildings and Food, an album that enjoyed commercial success on the back of their cover of Al Green’s “Take Me to the River.” In hindsight, seeing them perform that track on American Bandstand is to see a different road to pop music stardom not taken (also, shout out to Dick Clark for being unable to pronounce my girl Tina Weymouth’s name correctly). It all looks and sounds much more clean-cut and certainly less frantic than what fans would see in the 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense, where Byrne gives himself over to all manner of awkward dance moves while wearing that famous oversized suit. Same song, the same core band members, and yet it’s an entirely different energy. The transition from Point A to Point B doesn’t happen without this LP.

Even in the absence of surefire radio hits Fear of Music runneth over with exciting experiments that would color the Talking Heads’ sound from then on. The influence of African rhythms—something they’d lean into even more on Remain in Light—is present on “I Zimbra” and its close cousin, the underrated “Animals.” The penultimate cut, “Electric Guitar,” is among the strangest songs the band has ever produced, featuring a plodding melody that never sounds like it’s got its head screwed on tight enough. It doesn’t hurt that Brian Eno, returning as a producer following More Songs …, layers ambient electronic touches over the instrumental to give it a truly extraterrestrial appeal.

Then there’s the stark minimalism of closer “Drugs,” a track that sounds like a faceless shadow following you down a darkened corridor. Byrne’s delivery, particularly on the chorus, comes at you in fits and starts, landing somewhere between a gasp and a yelp vocally. The second bridge is where the paranoia I mentioned earlier really kicks in, articulating what it’s like to have your trip take a turn for the worst:

I'm charged up, I'm kinda wooden I'm barely moving, I study motion I steady myself, I fooled myself I'm charged up, it's pretty intense

Plenty of songs about drugs play it much straighter than “Drugs,” and I mean that as a compliment to the Talking Heads. It’s “Comfortably Numb,” but you can dance to it or at least do the kind of head nod most folks associate with an R&B or funk track. In the same vein, plenty of songs have been written about war, but none sound quite like the most prominent cut off Fear of Music, “Life During Wartime.” The central character isn’t heroic. The bleak setting he experiences is unrelenting. He’s mostly resigned to his reality (”The sound of gunfire off in the distance/I'm getting used to it now”), which includes surviving on peanut butter.

“I thought I’d write a song about urban guerrillas from the point of view of their daily lives instead of from the point of view of their politics,” said Byrne in 1979. Like *Born in the U.S.A.,* the lyrical laments are buried under one of the band’s most infectious rhythm sections. The chemistry between Weymouth and drummer Chris Frantz, in particular, is off-the-charts good. But the fact remains: how are you dancing to a song about a guy trying to stay alive in a warzone?

That paradoxical relationship is at the heart of what makes this record and the best of the Talking Heads so compelling. At their peak, no one sounded anything like them. Their music was utterly divorced from the trend-chasing, assembly-line ethos pop music spouted as the 70s ended. In that sense, they’ve been endlessly influential despite how purposely obtuse they’re trying to be. It’s not necessarily the most popular record they ever released, but from a sheer creativity standpoint, few albums make your ears perk up quite like Fear of Music.

👉 Don’t forget to click the album image to stream the album on your favorite platform 👈