Pitchfork

The liner notes to the long-awaited CD debut of Talking Heads' 1982 live release, The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads, recommends other albums by the New York four-piece. The list includes each of the band's studio albums, plus Rhino's four-disc box set Once in a Lifetime; perhaps conspicuous in its absence is that other live Talking Heads album, the far more popular and legendary Stop Making Sense.

It may not have been a confrontational omission, but the soundtrack to Jonathan Demme's Talking Heads concert film has long overshadowed The Name of This Band-- so much so that fans have long doubted that this earlier (and superior) live album would ever make it to compact disc. Thankfully, however, Rhino has now not only reissued The Name of This Band, but has also taken a cue from the recent "Special Edition" of Stop Making Sense by adding 13 tracks which weren't on the original version.

Part of the charm and power of Stop Making Sense the film is that it almost purely translates the live experience of a rock show audience rather than the experience of a touring band. There is no backstage fly-on-the-wall stuff, no dressing room preparations, on-the-bus interviews, caterers, hotel clerks or road managers. Rather, it's the snapshot of one live document with the camera playing the role of a punter, trained completely on the band in an attempt to recreate the experience of attending the show. It works so well that it's almost jarring when the camera finally closes in on audience members dancing in the aisles during the show's finale.

Musically, this approach is a bit limiting. As powerful as Talking Heads were at the time, Stop Making Sense still functions as a live document of one band at one moment in time (well, not technically-- the film was actually recorded over three nights). For a group such as this, who paid attention to the musical world around them, deftly and quickly folding outside influences as seemingly disparate as disco, afrobeat, funk and new wave into their already unique sound, The Name of This Band's approach-- collecting various live performances over a four-year period-- is more revelatory and rewarding. It functions as both a timeline in which a listener can trace the band's development and definitive proof that some of their supposed great departures-- particularly an accomplished and complex rhythm section-- were there from the onset.

The result is both the best career-spanning snapshot of and single-purchase introduction to Talking Heads-- odd accolades for a live record-- and a treat for longtime fans. The record's title refers to band leader David Byrne's dry, cheeky, no-nonsense stage patter in the band's early days, the years documented on the set's first disc. "This song is called 'New Feeling' and that's what it's about," Byrne begins, leading the four-piece group with both his animated, acrobatic vocal tics and affectations and the band's nervous, twitchy music.

All bugged eyes and neurosis, Byrne spits and churns his way through the best tracks from the band's first three albums. His oft-criticized, stream-of-consciousness language (best illustrated by the "Busy Doin' Nothin'"-like driving directions and matter-of-fact descriptions of the benefits of his apartment building and favorite federal laws in "Don't Worry About the Government") ground the band's more aggressive, robust playing music. At times, Byrne gets a little punchy as well, injecting anger and bemusement into "I'm Not in Love" and adding a bitter tone to "The Big Country", transforming it from the hazy thoughts of an airplane traveler to a more combative rumination on the urban/rural divide. It would be a candidate for the official anthem of the mythical Blue States if the so-called culture wars and other right-wing chicanery continue to drive their regrettable wedge into the country.

When required, however, Byrne can craft an expressive lyrics, as indicated by the literate detail of tracks such as "Psycho Killer", "Life During Wartime" and "Found a Job". And on an early version of "Electricity (Drugs)"-- one of three tracks first released on a rare Warner promo release-- the band is sleepy and drony, countering the lyrical claims that "I'm charged up." That track is also one of only three that is repeated on both discs, although on Disc 2, it's in as the more familiar "Drugs (Electricity)".

The second disc borrows a page from Stop Making Sense's playbook and recreates the entire set from stops along the band's Remain in Light tour, including a handful of tracks from the much-bootlegged February 1981 performance at Tokyo's Nakano Sun Palace. Expanded to a 10-piece band that included Adrian Belew on guitar and Bernie Worrell on keyboards, the bulk of Disc 2's material gives its studio versions a run for the money. Belew's nuanced guitar work, more confident contributions from the core members, and the added rhythmic dimension and heft are frequently jawdropping, but the loose beats and a playful Byrne keep claims of muso nonsense at arm's length.

The set itself is ordered nearly chronologically, which neatly and accidentally conforms to the logic of the album's running order. Within the set, the band builds the rhythmic density of their tracks, kicking off with a quartet of songs from their first two albums (including second appearances by "Psycho Killer" and "Stay Hungry"), before the funk-influenced "Cities" and African rhythms of "I Zimbra". Those two fractured, beat-heavy and offbeat tracks guide the audience into the final two-thirds of the set, which is mostly built from the polyrhythmic Remain in Light. Along the way, a melodic "Animals"-- perhaps the set's weakest track in its studio version-- easily surpasses the original, led by a gorgeous harmonic middle section.

Last week, Rhino also released an 18-track Best of Talking Heads set. Spanning the band's entire 11-year career, it's well-selected considering its considerable limitations and is arguably more inclusive than The Name of This Band, but it is also unnecessary as anything other than a grab bag of familiar radio hits. This live album, on the other hand, is not simply a fans-only document or a curio or a means of padding the discography or exploiting fans. In many ways, it's the best one-stop document of what made Talking Heads one of the post-punk era's most dynamic and urgent bands, and a succinct argument for the merits of synthesizing rock with emerging, potentially oppositional sounds. The latter is a lesson that will hopefully be learned by today's rock artists.