My Top 20 Abums for 1977 Number 11

Another debut 77 by Talking Heads
TALKING HEADS: 77

Brilliantly written, but where would these guys be without everybody's famous pornography lover?
Best song: PSYCHO KILLER

Track listing: 1) Uh-Oh Love Comes To Town; 2) New Feeling; 3) Tentative Decisions; 4) Happy Day; 5) Who Is It?; 6) No Compassion; 7) The Book I Read; 8) Don't Worry About The Government; 9) First Week/Last Week... Carefree; 10) Psycho Killer; 11) Pulled Up.

I guess the Heads weren't actually poised for commercial success with this one - what kind of dummy would want his debut album to sell with such a minimalistic cover? Another thing that immediately strikes you is how artsy-fartsy these guys were from the very beginning; apart from the Cars (whose New Wave fetish was almost an accidental thing anyway), the Heads are probably the only important New Wave band who do not have their roots in punk. I mean, for the rough and rowdy year of '77, which is so unequivocally indicated on the album cover, this sounds like a bunch of sissies playing sissy music with sissy guitar tones and singing sissy lyrics with sissy voices. In fact, it's a wonder they didn't regularly get booed offstage in their CBGB period.
But at the least, they were innovative, from the start. There are two things about '77 that set it apart from their following "classic" albums. First, there's no Brian Eno, and thus the production is pretty bare-bones. In fact, there's absolutely nothing to the production apart from the two-guitar-bass-drum pattern - occasionally, they toss in some piano lines, but still, these songs could have been easily recorded live in the studio, with just one, maximum two later overdubs (some of them probably were). This is both an advantage, in that for those who don't like their music pretentious and excessively artsy, '77 will easily be their favourite Heads record; and a flaw, because the songs are so goddamn hard to separate from each other. (Of course, they're still much more easy to separate than the ones on More Drones About Buildings And Food, but don't take that as a derogant arrogation, er, arrogant derogation, I mean).
The other problem is that they still haven't invented their main trademark style - yes, there's plenty of bizarre, uniquely played guitar syncopation on this record, but it's still nothing compared to the defiant chunka-chunka droning interplay between Byrne and Harrison on the next album. In fact, you could probably trace these rhythms to either a direct power-pop influence or a direct funk influence, and there's no predicting the amazing style of the next three records by merely listening to '77. That said, on some of the tracks they're really getting close, and at the very least it is obvious that they are actively trying to push forward guitar boundaries, in much the same way as their other artsy-guitar-heavy contemporaries Television (although Television put more effort into lead guitar playing, while the Heads are almost always exploring rhythm and rhythm only).
So, in fact, these aren't so much problems as they're merely indications that the band is still in its "establishing" phase. That has nothing to do with the quality of the actual songs, though, and the actual songs are all good. Byrne has already gotten his somewhat paranoid, somewhat eccentric romantic, somewhat sly social commentator poetic/vocal schtick together, and has already gotten an understanding of the fact that if your good song isn't a jam or a New Age masterpiece, it has to have a good hook. Therefore, if upon the first listen you start cringing and complaining about how it all sounds the same, don't despair - the hooks will start flying out at you and flapping their schizophrenia-driven wings at any moment now!
The album's most notorious song, of course, is 'Psycho Killer', which isn't nearly as frightening as the title (or the grim opening bassline, for that matter) suggests, because Byrne is primarily a goofman, and the 'psycho killer, qu'est-ce-que c'est? fa fa fa fa, fa fa fa fa fa fa, better run run run away' chorus amply demonstrates that. It's an eerie invitation to share the mind of a maniac all right, but it's a goofy invitation, and you can easily change the lyrics so that the song will deal with, I dunno, picking up a chick in a bar, although, granted, it probably wouldn't have nearly the same impact, or maybe it would. If you're interested, the song's major melodic hook is how the guitars disappear before the 'fa fa fas' and then come in again before the 'run run runs'. Great "counterpoint"!
'Psycho Killer' might be the outstanding track on here, but almost every other song has something going for it. 'Uh-Oh Love Comes To Town' opens the record in a strangely conventional manner, like a normal dance-pop number with a memorable, extremely well-built chorus (and boy, does that Ms Weymouth play a hot funky bass! James Jamerson, eat your heart out! There, I smoothly compensated my glaring racism with my active pro-feminist stance); but already the second song, 'New Feeling', even if it does start out by ripping off the riff of the Doors' 'My Eyes Have Seen You', soon evolves into that unprecedented Byrne/Harrison interplay which would later evolve into... uhm, even more unprecedented Byrne/Harrison interplay.
Other highlights that I could name right away are 'Happy Day', with its sentimental, but untrivially sentimental chorus; the multi-part "mini-suite" 'No Compassion', especially its opening and closing part where the main powerful riff is augmented by these tasty slide guitar bits and Byrne's 'in a world where people have problems' almost sounds like Neil Young; the lush romantic send-up 'The Book I Read' and especially that part where the bass piano line steps in and Byrne goes chanting 'na na na na - na na nana nana na'; the optimistic, little-man-shuns-the-Ray-Davies-attitude ditty 'Don't Worry About The Government', with its hypnotic, almost mantraic chorus (there's certainly something enthralling about Byrne going 'I'll be working, working...', don't you think?); and the ecstatic, overdriven album closer 'Pulled Up', with Byrne throwing the first of his trademark vocal hysterics. See, I've named you eight songs out of eleven, so that should give you some indication of how consistent these guys were from the beginning (and that doesn't mean the remaining three suck either).
I guess it's also the most optimistic album you'll ever be hearing from these lads - heck, if even 'Psycho Killer' doesn't sound frightening, then what's to be said about the love songs (which, confusedly enough, form the majority of the album)? If all these reasons aren't enough for you to go out and buy the record, you must be a reclusive Phil Keaggy fan or something. In which case I respect you, but I FEAR YOU! PSYCHO KILLER - QU'EST-CE QUE C'EST?