Talking Heads' Fear of Music

It's the summer of 1979. A 15—year—old boy listens to WNEW on the radio in his bedroom in Brooklyn. A monotone voice (it's the singer's) announces into dead air in between songs "The Talking Heads have a new album, it's called Fear of Music" — and everything spins outward from that one moment.

Jonathan Lethem treats Fear of Music (the third album by the Talking Heads, and the first produced by Brian Eno) as a masterpiece — edgy, paranoid, funky, addictive, rhythmic, repetitive, spooky and fu...