![]() 11 David Byrne – Lead Us Not Into Temptation (2003)Īn intriguing return to Byrne’s homeland of Scotland, his soundtrack to Young Adam paired him with various members of Belle and Sebastian, Snow Patrol and Mogwai, among others: you can hear their influence on the sound, which tends to post-rock, beautifully evocative of the damp, chilly landscapes of the film’s setting. Something was undoubtedly lost along the way, but the results are charming nonetheless, from the breeziness of And She Was through to the darker, more angsty Give Me Back My Name and the deathless Road to Nowhere. Talking Heads’ 2m-selling commercial peak dialled down the experimentation in favour of streamlined, literate, grownup pop. 12 Talking Heads – Little Creatures (1985) The lyrics are haunted by the Iraq war and everything is given a shimmer of weirdness by Eno’s production. 13 David Byrne and Brian Eno – Everything That Happens Will Happen Today (2008)Īnyone expecting a retread of Byrne and Eno’s earlier collaborations was in for a shock: their reunion yielded pop, country, gospel, breakbeats and Byrne yodelling. If it feels like much harder work than the album it is modelled after, perhaps that was the point: its mood is troubled, bleak, even apocalyptic. Talking Heads’ last big push returned to the sonic density of Remain in Light, with South America replacing west Africa as a rhythmic source. Photograph: Ebet Roberts/Redferns 14 Talking Heads – Naked (1988) Ryuichi Sakamoto playing a Fairlight CMI Series III sampling synthesiser and a Yamaha DX7 keyboard. The Oscar-winning soundtrack to Bertolucci’s film is divided down the middle: Ryuichi Sakamoto’s score melds romantic strings with Chinese instrumentation, but Byrne’s consists of a variant on what Can would have dubbed ethnological forgeries: his own interpretation of Chinese classical music, played largely on traditional instruments. 15 David Byrne/Ryuichi Sakamoto/Cong Su – The Last Emperor (1987) Not everything on Look Into the Eyeball’s eclectic menu is fantastic, but it is substantially more fun than its predecessor, Feelings, on which Byrne dabbled awkwardly with drum’n’bass and trip-hop: indeed, on its two collaborations with legendary soul producer Thom Bell, it has a genuinely infectious euphoria about it, suggestive of an artist once more finding his groove. ![]() 16 David Byrne – Look Into the Eyeball (2001) There is no doubt a 90-minute concept album about Imelda Marcos featuring guest appearances from Florence Welch, Sia and Cyndi Lauper is a tough sell, but Here Lies Love is surprisingly great: the songs are sparky – as dance producers go, Fatboy Slim has always been big on pop hooks – the story is legible and Róisín Murphy’s turn on the disco-infused Don’t You Agree? is a delight. ![]() Photograph: Xander Deccio/imageSPACE/SilverHub/Rex/Shutterstock 17 David Byrne and Fatboy Slim – Here Lies Love (2010) Byrne performs at the Sasquatch festival, May 2018. A world tour kicks off the same month that Byrne has called “the most ambitious show I’ve done since the shows that were filmed for Stop Making Sense.Punky and the brain. The cover art for American Utopia is by ‘outsider artist’ Purvis Young and the album itself will be released by Todomundo/Nonesuch Records on 9 March 2018. We look around and we ask ourselves – well, does it have to be like this? Is there another way? These songs are about that looking and that asking.” Many of us, I suspect, are not satisfied with that world – the world we have made for ourselves. Speaking about the album, Byrne said: “These songs don’t describe an imaginary or possibly impossible place but rather attempt to depict the world we live in now. The ten track album includes the song Everybody’s Coming To My House, which was co-written with Brian Eno. The record forms part of a larger multi-media project dubbed Reasons To Be Cheerful, an ongoing series curated by Byrne of ‘hopeful writings’, photos, music, and lectures – all themed around optimism ![]() David Byrne will issue American Utopia next month, his first solo studio album since 2004’s Grown Backwards.
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