Talking Heads was a New York band involved with the No Wave music movement in the citys music scene. The band also mixed punk rock, pop, funk, avant-garde, and world music into a unique whole.
The band was one of the most critically acclaimed bands in the 1980s, along with producing several pop hits for themselves. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002 for their artistic contribution to the world of music.
The band started with being a minimalist, tentative sounding band and over twelve years turn into the experimental, art music band it became very popular for being.
Talking Heads started in the Rhode Island School of Design with its founding members and moved to New York in order to ride the wave of music that was taking over the city.
The band quickly began working with other New York bands including The Ramones where they proved themselves to be excellent musicians and managed to get signed on to Sire Records to start producing albums. Their albums quickly took off into being art music, relying on different types of rhythm, such as African polyrhythms.
Along with their albums, they also took on their name Talking Heads which was in reference to a television studios head and shoulder shots of people who were simply talking with no action.
Tina Weymouth, one of the founders, thought that it fit the band and so they took that name. The band released four albums in quick succession and then seemed to burn out for a time before returning again in the 1980s.
It continued to produce albums through the eighties, but fell under the control of David Bryne who lost interest in the band and producing albums and so the band fell apart as well.
They had a brief reunion in 1996 to produce a final album and then the group split off in different directions to pursue different careers. They reunited a final time in 2002 to play for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but the reunion was by no means permanent.
Talking Heads has influenced other musicians such as Kate Bush and Radiohead who took their name from one of the Talking Heads songs.
The unique sound of the band has never been copied by any other band and they are very distinctive to their audience; however, musicians like Kate Bush and Trent Reznor both thoroughly enjoyed the bands sound and drew inspiration from them for their own music. Their music has also been well used in movies.
The No Wave movement allowed them a great deal of freedom in their music and so they were able to create a sound that lasted long past the time they were actively performing and recording.
Author Resource:-
Drew Mers is an advertising consultant to to Empire Rehearsal Studios, which rents music rehearsal studios to bands and musicians in Manhattan (New York City) and Queens.
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