Talking Heads - Little Creatures (1985) (1 Viewer)

[Anthony]

When I was going through my "I suppose I'd better get on board with talking heads" phase around 10 years ago I was buying album 1 by 1. I was quite relieved when I got this one. It's nice, where the rest were grand. I think More Songs About... was my fav though.

 

[hugh]

Just had listen through. It's pretty much as I remember it (actually a lot more familiar than I thought it would be). It's grand. An enjoyable enough listen but if this was the only TH album you ever heard you would really wonder what the big deal is. There's virtually nothing, to my ears anyway, of what makes them great. It's nowhere near the same league as Remain In Light for example. It's fine but it might as well be the B52s. Who are also grand.

And this isn't just a case of "I prefer their early stuff". I had a listen to the first few tracks from Naked right after and this was also as I remember - much, much better.

 

[Lili Marlene]

The B-52's would never ever be even a little bit as boring as this album how very dare you.

Anyway,to me this album sounds like David Byrne doing pop song exercises and the rest of the band being dragged along with him. At its best (the first track, the last track) it's as good as pop music can get, at its not so best (all the other tracks) its passable and middling. The huge pop production doesn't really sound like Talking Heads does it?

Check out this early demo of The Lady Don't Mind:

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there's probably a much better album of demos out there.


I actually prefer True Stories to this because True Stories goes so far overboard with the production that I find the excess enjoyable.

I give this album 7/10 because it's still decent but we just expect better from them.

 

[hugh]

Also, was just listening to Speaking In Tongues and it's also so much better. Not wanting to reignite the funk wars but here's another thing. SIT and many other TH albums have that in spades but Little Creatures drops the ball in that department big-time.

 

[nooleen]

poor scutter

 

[rettucs]

listening to this again now cos its so good.

 

[Cornu Ammonis]

I have a weird relationship with the Talking Heads (as a listener, we don't have a sex commune or anything like that) in that I think they are one of the best bands ever but I don't really like their albums that much. In terms of singles, they were unbelievable as when they got it right, it was stellar. In general, I find the album tracks tend to be rather forgettable no matter how much I go back to them*. I suppose it says it all that my favourite album is Stop Making Sense as you get all their best songs and with a seriously great live performance to boot (I always love a good live album as I feel they're a much better guage of how good a band was if you can hear them hit the same peaks, or higher, without the safety net of a second take or whatever).

This album is probably the one that I listen to the least because I don't even agree that "And She Was" is that great. Actually, I think it's pretty poor. It doesn't really improve from there until "Road to Nowhere" which makes me wonder why they bothered to pad out the album with such mediocre material (delivered in a fairly lifeless way) when they could have just released it as an amazing non-album single and not screw up the back catalogue with such a throwaway and drab album.

*I'm now probably going to go through all their albums and reconsider them just to prove to myself that they're all better than this album.

 

[rettucs]

And after you're all done listening to this wonderful album may I also recommend David Byrne's solo albums, 'Uh-Oh' and 'Look into the Eyeball'. If you liked this, you'll LOVE those.

 

[chris d]

This is way underwhelming after the first listen. And She Was screams mid afternoon TXFM and after that it is meh.

 

[egg_]

Television Man was the b-side of Road To Nowhere, iirc. I got the 7" off my school pal S**** B****, whose Ma converted to some kind of evangelical Christian sect that thought rock music was satanic and started burning his records

At the time we were all "yer ma is mad" but looking back it seems likely the poor woman was having some kind of breakdown, and it was all rather sad

edit: removed the guy's very googlable name, just in case

 

[Jerry Twig]

My name is Benny Cake and I do not approve this record.

 

[pete]

Just had my first listen. A pair of classics bookending a lot of yeah that's grand.

The Lady Don't Mind is also classssss

 

[rettucs]

The Lady Don't Mind is also classssss

correct

 

[Cornu Ammonis]

*I'm now probably going to go through all their albums and reconsider them just to prove to myself that they're all better than this album.

Rate all of their albums

 

[David Kronenbourg]

Can we reset and review a better TH album this week? Fear of Music ftw

 

[hugh]

Rate all of their albums

That seems spot on to me.

 

[Lili Marlene]

That seems spot on to me.

yeah agreed

 

[Cornu Ammonis]

I was tempted to bump Naked up a point, it was a lot better than I remember it being.

 

[Lili Marlene]

I was tempted to bump Naked up a point, it was a lot better than I remember it being.

my only issue with Naked is that there's a pile of outtakes from the sessions that are better than most of side 2:

Lifetime Piling Up
Sax & Violins
In Asking Land
Gangster of Love

I think they were finished after the fact but they're really strong songs.

 

[rettucs]

yeah agreed

WRONG

btw, 3 of those 4 songs were on sand in the vaseline which is further proof that I'm right.