Track Listing

1. Burning Down The House
2. Making Flippy Floppy
3. Girlfriend Is Better
4. Slippery People
5. I Get Wild/Wild Gravity
6. Swamp
7. Moon Rocks
8. Pull Up The Roots
9. This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1717 in Music
• Released on: 1984-08-24
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Review
Observe as David Byrne finally learns to dance. Non-Western sounds and funky rhythms had infected Talking Heads' music prior to this 1983 pop breakthrough, but Speaking in Tongues is where the beat truly gels. The band's quirky, nerdy persona somehow blends easily with music borrowed from the African Diaspora on "Stop Making Sense" and "Burning Down the House". The album also marks one of the last true band collaborations, before Byrne reduced his partners to mere sidemen. If their edgier early albums now sound more challenging and unique in hindsight, Speaking in Tongues at least documents the New York quartet's singular blend of World Beat, art school rock, and the always irresistible dance floor. --Steve Appleford

CD Description
On REMAIN IN LIGHT, the Heads fused their twitchy, intellectual geek-rock sensibilities with an organic, spiritual funkiness that catapulted them into a new artistic realm, virtually unfettered by the shackles of their "new wave" past. SPEAKING IN TONGUES picks up where that album left off, expanding on the band's newfound funk aesthetic and even upping thedanceability quotient a notch or two. The Heads let their hair down a bit more here than on REMAIN IN LIGHT, but while the tone is a bit less serious (as on the party-starting "Burning Down The House",) the highly developed conceptual sensibilites of Byrne and company are still at work, even without the assistance of former producer Brian Eno.
Some of the previous album's airy abstractions are stripped away here,to make more room on the dance floor. Tunes like "Girlfriend is Better" attack both the feet and the mind, in typicallyquirky Talking Heads style. "This Must Be the Place/Naive Melody" stands out as a pretty, affecting ballad about finding a sense of belonging (it's melodic charms were so pervasive it was eventually covered by folk-rocker Shawn Colvin).

Customer Reviews

The forgotten album comes good.
Well, I've definitely revised my view of this album which I used to think was one of the lesser albums in their canon. I used to think that the live album "Stop Making Sense" contained better versions of some these songs but now I'm not so sure. Taking on its own merit this is a joyous slab of skewed funk. It's strange how Talking Heads haven't really got the credit they deserve and unlike some of their contemporaries (Gang Of Four, Wire etc.) aren't routinely thought of as an influence to current bands. And yet given the quality of their back catalogue ( with the probable exception of their last album "Naked") there's a good case for claiming that they are a contender for best band of the eighties . Kicking off with 'Burning Down The House', you would have thought it couldn't get any better but it does. 'Making Flippy Floppy' with it's squelchy synth and relentless funk obviously owes a debt to Funkadelic/Parliament but listening to it is sheer unbridled joy. 'Girlfriend Is Better' is peerless pop and then you've got 'Slippery People' with it's Staple Singers gospel groove. So four tracks in and it's 5 stars already but the quality doesn't dip, ending as it does with the killer one-two of Pull Up The Roots and the gorgeous "This Must Be The Place".
The extra tracks on the first CD aren't essential although "Two Note Swivel" starts off promising but runs out of steam. And I'm sorry but I can't comment on the 5.1 DVD surround sound version (due to hardware poverty) but it's nice to have the videos for "Burning Down The House" and "This Must Be The Place" available. Could have done with more comprehensive sleveenotes though.
The songs on here are relatively streamlined compared to the over the top (but brilliant with it) kitchen sinkness of "Remain In Light". "Remain In Light" might indeed be the high watermark of the Talking Head albums but it really is time to reassess the less feted later albums. "Little Creatures" (which, strangely for such a well established band, was a lot of people's first taste of Talking Heads) was very good and "True Stories", whilst not up to the same standard, is still worth having. But this is brilliant. Listening to the gloriousy melodic choruses and relentless grooves it's been a revelation to me (as was the new version of "The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads")as to how uniformly strong this album is.

The "Talking Heads" pop collection...
This collection of tracks comes a couple years after the last part of the trilogy, of albums recorded with "Brian Eno", the last part "Remain in Light" is still this bands "zenith" in my humble option, at no other time since have they been so inventive and groundbreaking, no with this album the lessons learned with their former producer have been taken in another direction, the only repeating theme is the use of "African" percussion as with the previous 2 albums "Fear of Music & "Remain in Light".
The possible reason for this with this album is that the band have taken the duties of producer as a collective between themselves, don't get me wrong this is not a bad album but without the inventive genius that is "Eno" there is something missing, but what they have done with this album is bring the mixing skills of the late "Alex Sadkin" who worked with "Grace Jones" and men known as the "Rhythm Twins" better known as "Sly Dunbar" and "Robbie Shakespeare".
With "Mr Sadkin's" experience with reggae music he brought to the table a sense of pop music that paid off, for this is "Talking Heads" most commercial collection they ever released in my option.

From the opening track of "Burning Down the House" that has been so badly covered in resent years as to make me cringe every time I hear it. To the wonderful song that is "This must be the Place (naïve melody)", the album as a whole is just so easy to listen to, not to say that it falls into the "easy-listening" category, no far from it the words are as surreal as always.

As with most of the bands output the lyrics where written by the lead vocalist and front man of the band "David Byrne", as always only "David" knows what all his words are about.
But where the words have hidden meaning the music on the whole album is very accessible.
Another element that made this recording funkier than before was the use of the keyboard player "Bernie Worrell" from "Funkadelic" & "Parliament "and the choppy guitar work of "Alex Weir" doing his best to sound like "Nile Rodgers of "Chic" fame.
Another possible reason in my option for the more commercial sound of this recording is, this would turn out to be their last studio recording for the label "Sire" and they wanted their swansong for that label to be less experimental in nature to impress their new label "EMI".
In the decades that have passed since the release of this album and the others in bands back catalogue no one at "Sire" has thought to re-issue this album or any other "Talking Heads" album I find this to be criminal oversight on their part, the bands whole collection on that label should be all re-mastered and restored for the 21st century post haste...

A great album
This is possibly the best Talking Heads album, IMHO, and is more accessible and funky than their earlier work. Making Flippy Floppy, Pull Up the Roots and This Must be the Place are must-have tracks, and Girlfriend Is Better is one of the best songs ever written.
To be honest, the nearest you'll get to a turkey on this album is the single Burning Down the House, becasue it was so over-played even before Tom Jones got his leathery mitts on it.
Really very good.