Once in a Lifetime (2003)

Talking Heads are one of a handful of seminal rock bands whose catalog has been curiously overlooked in the CD era. Their albums have not been remastered, their legendary 1982 double-live album, The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads, has never made it to disc, and apart from 1992's Popular Favorites 1976-1992: Sand in the Vaseline, there has been no retrospective assembled (to make matters worse, in the U.K. that set was condensed to the single-disc The Best of Talking Heads: Once in a Lifetime). So, Rhino/WSM's 2003 box ... Read More

Talking Heads are one of a handful of seminal rock bands whose catalog has been curiously overlooked in the CD era. Their albums have not been remastered, their legendary 1982 double-live album, The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads, has never made it to disc, and apart from 1992's Popular Favorites 1976-1992: Sand in the Vaseline, there has been no retrospective assembled (to make matters worse, in the U.K. that set was condensed to the single-disc The Best of Talking Heads: Once in a Lifetime). So, Rhino/WSM's 2003 box set Once in a Lifetime (sure, the title is repeated, but what else could it reasonably be called?) is noteworthy for many reasons, because it marks the first remastering of the group's catalog (and the new sound is terrific), marks the first time any of The Name of This Band reached CD (alas, there's only one cut, "A Clean Break (Let's Work)," which never made it to another album), unearths a few rarities, and most importantly, provides an excellent three-disc retrospective on this seminal quartet. These three discs run 54 tracks, which is quite a bit more generous than it sounds, since all Talking Heads' studio albums apart from their last, 1988's Naked, are represented by over half of their songs (counting alternate takes, but not outtakes; these alternates are notably but not radically different, though "Cities" has brand new words), often coming three or four cuts from the total. Thematically, the three discs are sharply arranged, accentuating different eras for the band. After three early sides, all found on Sand in the Vaseline, the first disc is largely devoted to the debut Talking Heads: 77 and its 1978 sequel, More Songs About Buildings and Food. Instead of following strict chronological order on this collection, the two albums are interwoven, to play up at first the tense, nervy post-punk of early Talking Heads, and then it steadily reveals their growing immersion in funk and African rhythms. This has the effect of slightly downplaying Brian Eno's contributions to More Songs, but he returns to the forefront on disc two, which captures Talking Heads at their creative peak for 1979's Fear of Music, 1980's Remain in Light, and 1983's Speaking in Tongues, which is when their collaboration with Eno ended. This is the sound of classic Talking Heads -- David Byrne spitting out frenzied, fractured words over the tightly wound yet supple art-funk grooves laid down by Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, given melodic flair by Jerry Harrison. It's filled with timeless moments: "I Zimbra" filtering Fela Kuti through the New York boho punk; the deliriously paranoid "Life During Wartime," as potent during the war on terrorism as it was during the cold war; the brilliant "Once in a Lifetime," still Byrne's signature piece; "Crosseyed and Painless," spinning early hip-hop into uptight punk-funk; the Technicolor burst of "Burning Down the House," the single that brought them into the Top Ten; the sweet, aching "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)." Disc three deals with the aftermath of this brilliant run. At first, the group scaled the groove back and turned toward relatively straight-ahead pop with 1985's Little Creatures, represented here by such songs as "And She Was," "Stay Up Late," and the careening "Road to Nowhere," all of which retain their potency. After that, the box loses momentum as Talking Heads lost momentum, stumbling through the film project True Stories (which did produce a couple of pretty good songs in "Wild Wild Life," "Love for Sale," and "People Like Us") before ending after the worldbeat inclinations of Naked (containing the excellent "(Nothing But) Flowers" and the pretty good "Blind"; "In Asking Land" was an outtake released here for the first time, and it's not particularly noteworthy). If Once in a Lifetime does run out of steam toward the end, it has to be said that it doesn't outstay its welcome, and apart from a track or two at the very end, this is a compelling, entertaining listen... Read Less

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2003, Sire/Warner Reprise Video UPC: 081227393427 CD See All

UPC: 077778059356 See All