Q-Magazine, April 1992 by Andy Gill

Uh-oh

by Andy Gill

Packed with all manner of musical invention, oddball
observations and joyous pop nonsense, Uh-Oh is by
some way David Byrne's most commercial - and enjoyable
- outing since True Stories. But then, compared to
last year's worthy-but-dull art project The Forest, a
book-burning would be fun.

It's ironic, to say the least, that Byrne should disband
Talking Heads and then immediately release this, a
reversion to something like Headstyle, after a spell
trekking diligently up the backwaters of Brazilian music.
He's been as assiduous a third-world musical explorer as
Paul Simon, albeit less successfully; instead of Simon's
introspective, hypnotically layered structures, Byrne
tends to front his songs with a manic bug-eyed-loony glee
more congruent, perhaps, with the allegedly extrovert
Latin temperament. Admittedly, Uh-Oh isn't as heavily
influenced by Brazilian music as 1989's Rei Momo, though
there's still a substantial smattering of those healthy,
life-enhancing Guarani-beat rhythms.

This time, though, the Latin influence subsists mainly
as colouration, a virus colonising and altering other
styles. Twistin' In The Wind opens with a popping funk
intro reminiscent of Herbie Hancock's Headhunters riff,
before modulating into slightly Latinised pop, while
Hanging Upside Down is fairly clean and straightforward
disco-pop spiced with salsa horns. Other tracks contain
less cliched South American elements: Something Ain't
Right bounces cheerily along on a wheezing, rattling
percussion matrix of Indian drums and whistles, whilst
A Walk In The Dark builds its atmosphere of forbidding
mystery from a nervous, tiptoe rhythm set up by nylon-
string guitars, shakers and pan-pipes, through which
stalks an inquisitive bass clarinet and eerie, watery
organ. Here, and in the furiously paradiddling reeds
- more polka than salsa - of Now I'm Your Mom, Byrne
demonstrates the vastly increased grasp of tonal
colouration that his travels have brought to his pop
ideas. And no matter what twists and turns his songs
take, there's always a reassuring singalong chorus to
bring everything back into focus.

There's a similarity to Remain In Light, where Talking
Heads first allowed funk to infect their martial
rhythms, but Uh-Oh is a more comfortable blend of various
good-natured and occasionally comic elements, with the
tight pop concision of later Heads albums. There's a
sly, Bilko-esque swagger to Byrne's voice, for example,
when the horns cha-cha-cha their way into the chorus of
Cowboy Mambo (Hey Lookit Me Now), and the opening Now
I'm Your Mom contains some extremely silly stuff about
birds going 'tweedy-dee' and David being, yes, your mom.

One time, the serious artist in Byrne would never have
allowed such smirking nonsense to intrude on his more
elevated concerns. These days, though he's looser than
a long-necked goose, and a more complete artist for
it - even if it is difficult to figure out what on
earth he's on about at times.