Colin Shearman, Q- Magazine November 1992

Talking Heads: two compilations, but perhaps not the whole story.

Sand In The Vaseline: Popular Favorites 1976-1983
EMI CD EQ 5010 * * * *
Once In A Lifetime EMI CD EMD 1039 * * *

Particularly in the early albums produced with Brian Eno,
Talking Heads were undoubtedly one of the most important
and influential bands of the '80s. Their attempts to
transpose minimalist art into musical terms took them
further and further afield in search of new influences:
from '60s soul to urban funk to African and Arabian rhythms
and, as a result, their effect on others was enormous.

They were such a visual group that not even wide-ranging
compilations like these can really get to the heart of
their talent as effectively as the movies Stop Making
Sense and True Stories. That said, the double compilation
Sand In The Vaseline presents, in an even-handed way, a
few selections from each of their eight original albums
which not only serve to remind - especially on tracks
like And She Was and the Lou Reed-ish I Wish You Wouldn't
Do That -just how surprisingly melodic they were for an
"avant-garde" group but which also confirm, perhaps
against current opinion (and hits by husband and wife
Frantz and Weymouth's Tom Tom Club notwithstanding),
just how crucial Byrne's eccentric delivery and
economically clean-cut guitar playing were to the
group's success.

Bonus tracks include Sax And Violins from Wim Wenders's
film, Until The End Of The World; two extremely good demos
from 1975, Sugar On My Tongue and I Want To Live, plus
three other remixes or outtakes across the breadth of
their career: Popsicle, Gangster Of Love and Lifetime
Piling Up. The single compilation, Once In A Lifetime,
is a slimmer 14-track version of the double.

For all their experiments with dance rhythms and
structures, there was always a conventional pop band
inside Talking Heads trying to get out - in their early
days at Manhattan's CBGB's their act included 1910
Fruitgum Co. covers - and if these compilations can
be faulted, it's in the choice of material from the
later, more whimsical and poppy stage of their career,
when they'd signed to EMI in Britain.

Byrne is often portrayed as some kind of alien loony
on loan to planet Earth with a line in sneering
paranoia - but songs from 1986's True Stories like
City Of Dreams, People Like Us and Dream Operator
(only the first is included an the double compilation
and none on the single) reveal a compassion and
sensitivity to the lives of ordinary people which,
from reading about the band, you'd never know was there.
These later tracks put the earlier, apparently bleaker
view of modern life in a much softer context and give
songs like Road To Nowhere a compassionate edge rather
than its being just a one-way sneer at straight society.
It's an unfortunate misrepresentation of Byrne's talent
which both compilations could, and should, have done
something to repair.