Talking Heads

by Sean Albiez (Editor), David Pattie (Editor)

Overview

As the first collection of academic essays to discuss the work of the band and its individual members, Talking Heads examines the band in detail, places their work in context, and discusses its key importance in the development of contemporary popular music.

Talking Heads are one of the most important and influential bands in American popular music history. Emerging from the fertile musical culture of late 1970s New York, the band released a string of acclaimed albums (from Talking Heads 77 to Naked); released what has been described as the finest concert film of all time (Stop Making Sense); collaborated with key artists and musicians (Brian Eno, Robert Wilson, Jonathan Demme, and others); and produced some of the most iconic tracks in American popular music ('Psycho Killer', 'Life During Wartime', 'Once in a Lifetime', 'Road to Nowhere').

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798765108307
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	03/05/2026
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Sean Albiez is an Independent Scholar and musician. He has published on electronic music, music technology, punk and post-punk. He is currently researching topics in electronic music history and has thirty years experience lecturing in popular music at UK universities and colleges. He is co-editor of Kraftwerk: Music Non Stop (Bloomsbury, 2011), Brian Eno: Oblique Music (Bloomsbury, 2016), and The Velvet Underground (Bloomsbury, 2022), and Contributing Editor (Music Technology) for the Bloomsbury Encyclopaedia of Popular Music of the World. He produces electronic music as ghost elektron and - with Martin James - as Nostalgia Deathstar.

David Pattie is Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre Arts at the University of Birmingham, UK. He researches and publishes in a number of areas; popular music performance and culture, contemporary British and Scottish theatre, and the work of Samuel Beckett. He is the author of Rock Music in Performance (Bloomsbury, 2007), and the co-editor of the books Kraftwerk: Music Non Stop (Bloomsbury, 2011) and Brian Eno: Oblique Music (Bloomsbury, 2016), and The Velvet Underground (Bloomsbury, 2022).

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
Sean Albiez, Independent Scholar, Writer and Musician, UK and David Pattie, University of Birmingham, UK
2. Talking Heads in Context
Victor Sarafian, University of Toulouse, France
3. Downtown TV: Talking Heads, The Configuration of The Human and the Utopia of Television
Tom Day, Executive Director, NACG/The Film-Makers' Cooperative, USA
4. How Talking Heads Mean: The Band as Literature 1977-1980
Peter Griffiths, Independent Scholar and Writer, UK
5. Talking Heads in the Lonely City: David Byrne, Tina Weymouth and the Observational Outsider
John Encarnacao, Western Sydney University, Australia
6. “This 'aint no party”: Dystopia, Despair, and Fear, of Music
Steve Tupai Francis, Independent Scholar and Writer, Australia
7. 'I Zimbra': An Imagined 'Africa' and the Advent of 'World Music'
Timor Kaul, Independent Scholar and Musician, Germany
8. We Are Human Samplers: Technology & Remain in Light (1980)
Neil O Connor, University of Limerick, Ireland
9. 'Remain in Light': From Africa To New York
Nigel Sanders, Independent Scholar, Writer and Musician, UK
10. Radio On: Sampling Practices in The Bush of Ghosts
Shane O'Sullivan, Kingston School of Art, UK
11. 'Once in a lifetime': Listened as it Never Was
Alejandra Sáenz López and Perfecto Herrera Boyer, Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya (ESMUC), Spain
12. A Suit That Never Fits: Subversions of Masculinity and Professionalism in the Audiovisual work of David Byrne and Talking Heads
Ryann Donnelly, University of Sussex, UK
13. 'True Tales of The Big Country': Talking Heads and the return to America
David Pattie, University of Birmingham, UK
14. “What the hell have we become?”: Naked, neoliberalism and the 1980s
Toby Manning, Independent Scholar and Writer, UK
15. Talking Covers: Approaching Talking Heads' Transgressive Aesthetics Through Cover Versions
Alexander Kroll, Independent Scholar, Germany
16. David Byrne and the Poetics of Collaboration
Sean Albiez, Independent Scholar, Writer and Musician, UK
17. The Man in the Suit
David Pattie, University of Birmingham, UK
18. As Above, So Below: Tom Tom Club and Talking Heads
Martin James, Coventry University, UK