Jerk Music Critic: Talking Heads: 77

After "Love → Building On Fire" bounced onto the singles charts we expected great things from Talking Heads' first full effort, and the first half of "77" uncompromisingly fails to achieve them. David Byrne, if you're as smart as the lead track alleges you are, then where did you come up with such patent gibblegabble like "love is simple as 1-2-3"? Did you crib notes off the Jackson 5? By "No Compassion" I'm ready to break the disc into pieces except the local shop won't take fragments on trade-in. And then, just after that nadir, just when I've started thinking about how stupid this album is sounding and how they fooled us all, then the good stuff starts. "The Book I Read" is still a little lyrically imbecilic, but I'll give him points for humour (if this was meant for a real author, then I'd love to see the restraining order) and the band for some actual musical feeling and complexity. When he talks about the laws in this country that are his favourites and the civil servants that are his loved ones ("Don't Worry About The Government") this right-wing capitalist bastard wonders if he's really serious, but if it's snark it's witty and if it's earnestness it's certainly original. And then there's "Psycho Killer," which teaches all of us the finer points of being a homicidal maniac au français. The two stars isn't (just) because half the songs are bad; it's because this should have been an EP, and given what they've demonstrated they're capable of they have no excuse. The reissue adds "Love → Building On Fire," which, being programmed onto the second half, means you can go right on skipping the first. (Content: no concerns.)

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Express Yourself

The Jerk Music Critic is a collection of amateur music reviews I wrote largely non-professionally between the 1990s and today. Some of these reviews are contemporary and some are retrospective, and a few are rather dated, but all are intended to be free-standing and permanent records of my completely worthless musical opinion. They are presented in no particular order and "new" reviews that occur may actually be simply prior ones I've only now transcribed. Older reviews have been edited to hopefully remove inaccuracies later revealed, as well as add brief content advisories (see "Smash the PMRC") and, where reissues exist with different tracks, brief commentaries on these later additions (the actual star review was not altered).

If you're looking for a specific artist, or just interested to see what I really liked (or really didn't), "When I Break Down" indexes reviews by artist and by number of stars awarded (see "Star Chart" for an explanation).

As we move deeper into the Internet music age where the album format might seem hopelessly antiquated, there is still some artistic value in the LP to those artists who still take advantage of it, and some of these recordings can only be properly appreciated in that context. I hope you enjoy these reviews and recommendations, and don't take them too seriously. — Cameron Kaiser

Star Chart

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An instant classic. Substantially advances/d the state of the art, either technologically, stylistically, or (preferentially) both, and is outstanding music besides. Buy it.

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A excellent album. Nearly every song is a gem; nearly every piece is a winner. Falls short of 5 stars for want of that certain special something, but the difference is in impact, not in musical quality. Buy it.

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Solid. Mostly good songs with a few clinkers. Salvageable with a good playlist. Buy it cheap.

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Mixed. Some good songs stand out, but not enough to make it listenable as a whole. Buy the good songs on iTunes.

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Bad. One or two tracks of even decent quality. Buy the good songs cheap on iTunes.

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How did this get released?

Smash the PMRC

I don't advocate for censorship or unnuanced black and white stickers, but I do advocate for parents being able to raise kids in the way they see fit, which might include introducing albums of controversial yet artistic merit at a point in their child's life when they can better appreciate it. The content summaries are intended to be a very general guide, reflective of only my own personal sensibilities and mine alone, and do not substitute in any way for a parent actually sitting down and listening to the album themselves. If you excessively rely on my content advisories, then I'm the one raising your kid, and you really don't want that.