Stop Making Sense (album)

Stop Making Sense
Live album by Talking Heads
Released September 1984 (1984-09)
Recorded December 1983 (1983-12)
Venue The Pantages Theatre, Hollywood
Genre New wave, post-punk
Length 39:37 (LP)
46:29 (CD/Cassette)
74:16 ('Special New Edition' CD)
Label Sire/Warner Bros.
Producer Talking Heads, Gary Goetzman
Talking Heads chronology
Speaking in Tongues
(1983)		 Stop Making Sense
(1984)		 Little Creatures
(1985)
Singles from Stop Making Sense
  1. "Once in a Lifetime"
    Released: February 1984
  2. "Slippery People"
    Released: October 1984
  3. "Girlfriend Is Better"
    Released: December 1984
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[1]
The Austin Chronicle[2]
Chicago Tribune[3]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music[4]
Q[5]
Rolling Stone[6]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[7]
The Village VoiceB+[8]

Stop Making Sense is a live 1984 album by Talking Heads, the soundtrack to the film of the same name. The original release of the album features only nine of the songs from the movie, many of them heavily edited. The album spent more than two years (118 weeks) on the Billboard 200 chart. In 1999, a 16-track re-release coincided with the concert's 15th anniversary.

Byrne's intention was not to make a traditional soundtrack album, but to have it be a separate experience. Limited pressings of the original LP version featured a full color picture book wrapped around the album jacket. Regular versions had many of the pictures and captions on the album's inner sleeve. In 1999 - to correspond with the theatrical re-release of the movie - the album was extended and remastered, restoring all of the songs from the movie with only very minor edits. The newly included tracks and one track from the original album, "What a Day That Was", feature Frantz's original drumming from the concert recordings.

In 2003, the album was ranked number 345 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In 2012 Slant Magazine listed the album at #61 on its list of "Best Albums of the 1980s".[9]

Track listing

All songs written by David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Jerry Harrison, Tina Weymouth except as noted.[10]

Side one

  1. "Psycho Killer" (Byrne, Frantz, Weymouth) – 4:28
  2. "Swamp" – 3:50 (LP) 4:28 (cassette, CD)
  3. "Slippery People" – 3:35 (LP) 4:13 (different mix; cassette, CD) ["When this song was originally recorded on Speaking in Tongues," says Frantz in the liner notes of Once in a Lifetime: The Best of Talking Heads, "it had a funky and compact sound. This Stop Making Sense version is funky and big as a house. (Or should I say church?)"]
  4. "Burning Down the House" – 4:14
  5. "Girlfriend Is Better" (Byrne) – 3:32 (LP) 5:07 (cassette, CD)

Side two

  1. "Once in a Lifetime" (Byrne, Brian Eno, Frantz, Harrison, Weymouth) – 4:34 (LP) 5:34 (cassette, CD)
  2. "What a Day That Was" (Byrne) – 5:08 (LP) 6:30 (cassette, CD)
  3. "Life During Wartime" – 4:52 (LP) 5:52 (cassette, CD)
  4. "Take Me to the River" (Al Green, Teenie Hodges) – 6:00

Film/Special New Edition Soundtrack

Bonus live tracks "Heaven" and "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)" were available as B-sides on various US 7" and UK 12" singles during the album's original release. These versions were released on the Special Edition soundtrack.

  1. "Psycho Killer" (Byrne, Frantz, Weymouth) – 4:24
  2. "Heaven" (Byrne, Harrison) – 3:41
  3. "Thank You for Sending Me an Angel" (Byrne) – 2:09
  4. "Found a Job" (Byrne) – 3:15
  5. "Slippery People" – 4:00
  6. "Burning Down the House" – 4:06
  7. "Life During Wartime" – 5:51
  8. "Making Flippy Floppy" – 4:40
  9. "Swamp" – 4:30
  10. "What a Day That Was" (Byrne) – 6:00
  11. "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)" – 4:57
  12. "Once in a Lifetime" (Byrne, Eno, Frantz, Harrison, Weymouth) – 5:25
  13. "Genius of Love" (Weymouth, Frantz, Adrian Belew, Steven Stanley) (performed by Tom Tom Club) – 4:30
  14. "Girlfriend Is Better" – 5:06
  15. "Take Me to the River" (Green, Hodges) – 5:32
  16. "Crosseyed and Painless" (Byrne, Eno, Frantz, Harrison, Weymouth) – 6:11

Personnel

Additional personnel

Production

Reception

"A bona fide classic," opined Neil Jeffries in a five-star review of the reissue for Empire, "a perfectly measured snapshot of a widely loved and respected band playing at the height of their powers… No other band could do this. No other music movie soundtrack sounds this good."[11] "A timely reminder of the achievements of perhaps the most underrated band of the post-punk age," agreed Q. "From its stripped-down intro… to the nine-piece finale, Stop Making Sense remains heady, stirring stuff."[12]

Charts

Album

Year Chart Position
1984 Billboard 200 41/53
UK Albums Chart 37/24

Certifications

Organization Level Date
RIAA – U.S. Gold March 1, 1985
BPI – UK Gold November 26, 1985
RIAA – U.S. Platinum July 2, 1986
Double Platinum August 17, 1994

References

  1. ↑ Hastings, Michael. "Stop Making Sense – Talking Heads". AllMusic. Retrieved February 5, 2016.
  2. ↑ Moser, Margaret (December 31, 1999). "Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense (Sire/Warner Bros.)". The Austin Chronicle. Retrieved September 8, 2016.
  3. ↑ Kot, Greg (May 6, 1990). "Talking Heads On The Record". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved November 8, 2015.
  4. ↑ Larkin, Colin (2007). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th ed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 0-857-12595-8.
  5. ↑ "Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense". Q (157): 144. October 1999.
  6. ↑ Connelly, Christopher (November 8, 1984). "Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on July 24, 2001. Retrieved September 8, 2016.
  7. ↑ Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian, eds. (2004). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-743-20169-8.
  8. ↑ Christgau, Robert (October 30, 1984). "Christgau's Consumer Guide". The Village Voice. Retrieved February 5, 2016.
  9. ↑ http://www.slantmagazine.com/music/feature/best-albums-of-the-1980s/308/page_4
  10. ↑ Talking Heads. Stop Making Sense (Sire Records, 1984).
  11. ↑ Empire October 1999
  12. ↑ Q January 2000
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