Talking Heads- Stop Making Sense- David Byrne, Jerry Harrison

Currently enjoying a renaissance as one of the best rock concert films ever, both critically and commercially, the Talking Heads’ movie and soundtrack album Stop Making Sense certainly warrants the remastering effort now available. By the time of the filming for the original movie release in October 1984, David Byrne and Talking Heads had more than seven years of performing in front of increasingly larger crowds.

So the concert opener “Psycho Killer” ‘s solitary madness and coiled threat had been stripped down by then to Byrne’s wicked choppy acoustic rhythm guitar and an incessant pulsing beat, until David breaks out in some hypnotic St. Vitus dance. Similarly, the isolation and palpable paranoid violent tension lurking in the studio version of “Life During Wartime” are dialed down here, while the delirious tempo and arrangement are amped up into a five minute aerobic workout that is simply infectious.The collaboration between Talking Heads, David Byrne’s vision, and Silence of the Lambs award-winning director Jonathan Demme results in brilliant film making. Over forty years on, and now with remastered optics and sound, everything works when you Stop Making Sense.

The communal joy of the Black American gospel church informs much of the live performance here, as it has on subsequent David Byrne projects including his recent wildly successful American Utopia on Broadway. And the seemingly insignificant choice that the concert audience is never shown on screen until the very conclusion of Stop Making Sense really aids the viewer’s suspension of disbelief, by making you an active witness rather than disengaged casual observer. David Byrne and the Big Suit plus Jerry Harrison are my guests here In the Studio for the groundbreaking Talking Heads Stop Making Sense. -Redbeard