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Talking Heads: 77 album cover

Album · 1977

Talking Heads: 77

by Talking Heads

Talking Heads: 77 is a 1977 new wave album by Talking Heads. It runs 11 tracks across 39 minutes on Sire Records. Riffiter listeners rate it 3.5/5 from 1 rating.

New Wave

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3.5 /5
1 rating
86 /100
10 critics
11
Tracks
39 min
Runtime
121 bpm
Tempo
F minor
Key

Ratings

1 rating · avg 3.5

0.5★5★

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Critics

10 publications

Scores collected from the English Wikipedia ratings box (CC BY-SA). Ratings belong to the publications; follow a link to read the review.

Cover art

1 credit

Talking Heads: 77 cover art
Photography
Mick Rock

Tracklist

11 tracks · 39 min

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Also released as

Every pressing below shares this page's rating and reviews — they are the same record.

  • Talking Heads: 77 (Super Deluxe Edition) (2024 Remaster)Deluxe edition · 1977 · 25 tracks
    1. 1Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town (2024 Remaster)
    2. 2New Feeling (2024 Remaster)
    3. 3Tentative Decisions (2024 Remaster)
    4. 4Happy Day (2024 Remaster)
    5. 5Who is It? (2024 Remaster)
    6. 6No Compassion (2024 Remaster)
    7. 7The Book I Read (2024 Remaster)
    8. 8Don't Worry About the Government (2024 Remaster)
    9. 9First Week/Last Week...Carefree (2024 Remaster)
    10. 10Psycho Killer (2024 Remaster)
    11. 11Pulled Up (2024 Remaster)
    12. 12Sugar on My Tongue (2024 Remaster)
    13. 13I Want to Live (2024 Remaster)
    14. 14Love Goes to a Building on Fire (2024 Remaster)
    15. 15I Wish You Wouldn't Say That (2024 Remaster)
    16. 16Psycho Killer (Acoustic Version) [feat. Arthur Russell] (2024 Remaster)
    17. 17Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town (Alternate Pop Version) (2024 Remaster)
    18. 18New Feeling (Alternate Pop Version) (2024 Remaster)
    19. 19Pulled Up (Alternate Pop Version)
    20. 20Stay Hungry (1977 Version) (2024 Remaster)
    21. 21First Week/Last Week...Carefree (Acoustic Version) (2024 Remaster)
    22. 22I Feel It in My Heart (2024 Remaster)
    23. 23Psycho Killer (Alternate Version)
    24. 24Love Goes to a Building on Fire (Live at CBGB, New York, NY, 10/10/1977) (2024 Remaster)
    25. 25Uh-Oh, Love Come to Town (Live at CBGB, New York, NY, 10/10/1977) (2024 Remaster)

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About

Though they were the most highly touted new wave band to emerge from the CBGB's scene in New York, it was not clear at first whether Talking Heads' Lower East Side art rock approach could make the subway ride to the midtown pop mainstream successfully. The leadoff track of the debut album, Talking Heads: 77, "Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town," was a pop song that emphasized the group's unlikely roots in late-'60s bubblegum, Motown, and Caribbean music. But the "Uh-Oh" gave away the group's game early, with its nervous, disconnected lyrics and David Byrne's strained voice. All pretenses of normality were abandoned by the second track, as Talking Heads finally started to sound on record the way they did downtown: the staggered rhythms and sudden tempo changes, the odd guitar tunings and rhythmic, single-note patterns, the non-rhyming, non-linear lyrics that came across like odd remarks overheard from a psychiatrist's couch, and that voice, singing above its normal range, its falsetto leaps and strangled cries resembling a madman trying desperately to sound normal. Talking Heads threw you off balance, but grabbed your attention with a sound that seemed alternately threatening and goofy.

Read more

The music was undeniably catchy, even at its most ominous, especially on "Psycho Killer," Byrne's supreme statement of demented purpose. Amazingly, that song made the singles chart for a few weeks, evidence of the group's quirky appeal, but the album was not a big hit, and it remained unclear whether Talking Heads spoke only the secret language of the urban arts types or whether that could be translated into the more common tongue of hip pop culture. In any case, they had succeeded as artists, using existing elements in an unusual combination to create something new that still managed to be oddly familiar. And that made Talking Heads: 77 a landmark album.

In brief

Is Talking Heads: 77 good?
Riffiter listeners rate Talking Heads: 77 3.5/5 from 1 rating.
When was Talking Heads: 77 released?
Talking Heads: 77 was released in 1977 on Sire Records.
How many tracks are on Talking Heads: 77?
Talking Heads: 77 has 11 tracks, with a runtime of 39 minutes.
What genre is Talking Heads: 77?
Talking Heads: 77 is catalogued under New Wave.
What BPM is Talking Heads: 77?
Talking Heads: 77 runs at a median tempo of 121 BPM across its tracks, most often in F minor, measured from audio analysis.
What albums are similar to Talking Heads: 77?
Listeners of Talking Heads: 77 also rate The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars by David Bowie, Parallel Lines by Blondie, Who Is the Sky? by David Byrne.

Talking Heads: 77 at a glance

Label
Sire
Produced by
Talking Heads, Tony Bongiovi

Facts from Wikidata (CC0).