The 1985 Project Pt 1: Talking Heads - Little Creatures

Let's talk about the albums of 1985

I started thinking about this while reading the comments on a Facebook group post the other day. I’m in this group called Expert Witness, with tons of other music writers and knowledgeable people - it was actually formed by commenters on Robert Christgau’s Expert Witness column on the old Vice website. William Boyd posted a link to the 1985 Village Voice Pazz and Jop results - Pazz and Jop was the annual poll of music writers conducted by the Voice for decades.

I thought the list included some pretty good records, but I was surprised when Kevin Bozelka and Alfred Soto, two writers I greatly respect, said half of them were pretty blah. I looked again, and realized I only had negative thoughts about two of the records on the list. But I wasn’t sure how positive my thoughts were about the remaining 38. I figured it might be fun to listen to them all, and then start listening to albums that weren’t in the poll’s Top 40, and learn over the next couple years just what I really think about 1985’s music.

The plan then is to have a new post every Monday, starting with the top of the list and working my way through all 40 records. After that, I’ll see what else there is to hear - feel free to comment with suggestions. I’ll keep a list. I’ve always assumed the best album that year was Tales of the New West by the Beat Farmers. I won’t listen to that one again for a while, though, so we’ll see. Nobody ever said opinions were meant to be carved in stone.

Talking Heads – Little Creatures

In 1985, 99 out of 238 music writers voted for this album in the Pazz & Jop Poll, giving it enough points (1078) to easily come in first place that year. The rules of the Poll are a little hard for people who’ve never voted to understand, but the idea is each critic votes for ten albums and assigns a total of 100 points to the list, with no album being allowed more than 30 points. If the vote total averages out to just over ten per voter for this record, that means that few, if any, actually thought this record was the very best of the year. But many thought it was good enough to place in the top ten.

Listening for the first time in ages to the whole album, I think it’s a good record, but far from the best to come out in 1985. This was Talking Heads conservative album, a return to the four piece band (augmented here and there with horns or extra percussion, but nothing like the extra personnel you all know from Stop Making Sense. Their first two albums were done this way, and I love those. This one doesn’t have the sense of paranoia and angst that fueled David Byrne’s manic songwriting – here he’s railing about keeping a baby up all night or watching too much television. That ain’t no “Psycho Killer” or “The Big Country” (“I wouldn’t live there if you paid me.”).

It does have one stone classic track, placed right at the end of the record which would always leave listeners feeling better about the album. “Road to Nowhere,” with Chris Franz playing drums like he’s in the army, with Jerry Harrison going crazy on keyboards, with Tina Weymouth holding down a steady bass beat, and with Byrne screaming like he’s Adrian Belew’s elephantine guitar, is one of those songs I never get tired of hearing. “And She Was,” which opens the album, isn’t as great as that one, but it’s pretty hard to resist, with that insistent dark Mr. Rogers-esque tinkle to it, and the way Byrne gets worked up on the “hey-hey-hey-hey-hey-hey” parts.

Nothing here is less than enjoyable. Talking Heads by this time were a well oiled professional unit, and they could come up with with winning songs without much extra effort – there would be more on the two albums remaining in their career. “Genius of Love” aside, none of the band members would ever do anything separately half as well as they did together. (I did see Jerry Harrison’s Casual Gods live a couple years after this album came out, and though that band’s album is quite minor, the live show was one of my greatest experiences of the decade.)

I think I’d grade this record along the lines of 7 out 10 points, good with a couple of great moments and no weak spots.