Talking Heads: Speaking in Tongues [SIRE / RHINO]

Why you'll love it

Speaking in Tongues gave Talking Heads their only US Top 10 hit, "Burning Down the House," and set up the legendary Stop Making Sense tour. It's their funkiest, most danceable record, and it closes with the beautiful "This Must Be the Place."

This edition

• Single LP, 9 tracks
• Sire / Rhino pressing
• Produced by Talking Heads

About the album

After three albums with Brian Eno, Talking Heads produced Speaking in Tongues themselves, and you can hear them having a blast. David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz and Jerry Harrison built the songs out of long jams, and the result is a loose, joyful, polyrhythmic funk record full of odd sounds and big hooks.

"Burning Down the House" became their biggest US hit, "Slippery People" and "Girlfriend Is Better" (source of the phrase "stop making sense") are irresistible, and the closing "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)" might be the sweetest love song Byrne ever wrote. The tour that followed became the concert film Stop Making Sense.

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Tracklist

Listen

On Sire / Rhino, a reissue of the 1983 album.