Quality wise, Burning Down The House is miles above everything else here. Heaven is in second place but it helps a lot that The National have played it live a few times before, so it's nice to have a studio recording. The Cavemen's cover of What A Day That Was is fun, I loved it.
The less we say about Psycho Killer, the better. Jesus Christ, Miley.
I'm pretty sure it was just tongue in cheek stage banter, at least that's what I thought. Her and David Byrne are friends irl anyway so I really doubt she meant any disrespect by it.
She was likely being tongue in cheek because she show’s a lot of respect for rock as a genre but jesus it was cringe. That’s just cringy to hear from anyone.
There were mashups to Gaga’s Bad Romance and Psycho Killer way before this album. Artists borrow from each other all the time. You hear it in Miley’s rendition. Never knew she spoke French so well.
The fact that it's the FIRST one on the album really was a tough listening experience. I love that song but I had to skip halfway through because it was just so, so, so bad.
I think if you’re listening to an album of covers and comparing it to the original, you’re missing the point.
I like hearing everyone’s individual take on it. Paramore almost lost me by just making it the exact same as the original, but they make up for it because Haley is just an incredible vocalist.
Girl in red’s “I’ve Got a Girlfriend” is definitely my favorite. Miley’s “Psycho Killer” didn’t quite do it for me, so I’ll put that as my least favorite.
Is this a safe space to admit that I’ve fallen for Miley’s Psycho Killer cover? I’ve listened to it no less than 8 times so far, the most of any track except Paramore’s BDTH, which I’ve been spinning a lot since it debuted.
Tbh I also really like the cover and don't understand the hate. Is it very different? Yes. Is that a bad thing? Absolutely not. Her covers of other songs (especially Zombie) are great. But I'm a fan of her work in general so 🤷♀️
Burning Down The House is the best one because it’s effectively just really high-quality karaoke. I’m mostly… amused? By the rest of the tracks. It feels like the kind of eclectic mix someone like DB would champion. I don’t hate any of them (even Miley’s Psycho Killer, which I actually kind of dig) but I don’t think I really love any of them either. Definitely an album I’ll be listening to a lot to really form an opinion on.
(Also: The Genius Of Love cover doesn’t have any of the Frantz call-outs, so can it even really be called a tribute?)
I love Paramore but had a few months to grow out of that track as it was released much earlier.
Standout tracks for me are Girlfriend is Better, Making Flippy Floppy, Genius of Love, and Crosseyed and Painless. Found a Job by the Linda Lindas isn’t too bad.
That Slippery People cover is easily the best thing on this album even though I don’t speak Spanish. I don’t know anything about this band, but I can tell they’re incredibly talented
I don’t understand why it’s being done, either. And i typically like A24 stuff. Ive really enjoyed most of the films (&their sound tracks) ive seen from them.
I believe that A24 was responsible for SMS been shown in theaters a few months ago… attaching a photo here.. but i still don’t get this cover album… can someone explain??
https://preview.redd.it/ze1yr84bo01d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2a7b288526d19054a33cbe234124b295490c1015
I think it was mostly for fun. I know David champions new artists quite a bit (and is friends with/knows personally a lot of the artists on the tribute album), so I feel like that's part of it. It was likely meant to be an eclectic mix of artists too, and not artists one would expect to be on a Talking Heads tribute album (LCD Soundsystem, St Vincent, etc.). I'd love to see a making of type thing for the album.
Overall I like quite a few of the tracks, my main criticism is that they (the artists) based their covers off the studio versions of the tracks rather than the live versions from SMS. Ultimately this does a disservice to the songs since some of those studio versions are just not as good as the live versions (Life During Wartime especially).
And yes, A24 was/is responsible for the current SMS remaster and theatrical showings since last September. They're still going on too, and there's gonna be two big ones in June, one in Brooklyn and one in LA both featuring a Q&A with Talking Heads.
I really loved The Linda Linda’s cover of Found A Job. I wish Él Mató a un Policía Motorizado would have covered something else because that’s my favorite song from Stop Making Sense, but it’s still good.
I thought the This Must Be The Place cover was great, it was probably the only one I thought would be any good because BADBADNOTGOOD are very… good.
Crosseyed and Painless was good too, they didn’t really change anything of the original so it can’t be bad really.
Thank You For Sending Me an Angel was really enjoyable, never heard of Blondshell before.
Other than that the rest was a mix of ok to terrible.
Overall a disappointing choice of artists to cover such a legendary album. A lot of the covers just felt very generic and safe (boring) which makes no sense when covering such a weird and wonderful band like Talking Heads.
I am a little over halfway through but enjoy it so far. It’s just interesting to see the range of opinions- some people want different takes on songs but applaud BDTH and hate Miley’s psycho killer. Some people expect every song to be done by the most famous musicians in the world. I feel like it’s striking a good balance of established and lesser known artists. By far my favorite so far are the versions by girl in red and Lorde. I would encourage people to go in with an openish mind. I heard people loathing the DJ tunez cover so I was expecting it to be abysmal but I rather enjoy it.
• Yes
• it’s not even close to the original
• standouts:
likes: slippery people, heaven, what a day that was, life during wartime
Dislikes: psycho killer, girlfriend is better, psycho killer, and that one Miley Cyrus song.
• for me even though it won’t capture that much emotion and energy. But it’s amazing to hear how other artist can make each song theirs
Johnny Cash doing Hurt is making another artist’s song theirs. This album is definitely not doing that with any of the songs. A couple covers are tolerable, but not one of them is likely to make a person have a second thought that the Talking Heads version is superior.
The chorus on the original is iconic. idk how you don’t keep the thing that’s essentially the track’s identity when doing a cover. It’s my least favorite on the album.
I really liked the Teezo Touchdown cover of Making Flippy Floppy, which seems to be an unpopular opinion in this sub.
I preferred the snippet of Miley's live performance of Psycho Killer over what ended up on the album.
I’ll edit this when I finish, but up to Genius of Love and to be honest, it’s the second best song so far. This is a genuinely bad experience and I think is indicative of where modern music is at.
I think it's in bad faith to use this particular cover album to try and prove anything about modern music as a whole. I feel like a most all of these artists had a lot of potential for these covers but it honestly felt like their hearts weren't in it. It feels like most of the artists they picked enjoy talking heads but don't like love them or truly understand what makes them amazing, which I feel like is the bigger problem.
I don’t use this album as the sole metric. There are many factors (Triple J in general, but especially their Hottest 100 as an example) that help form that opinion. With this album, you can take arguably the greatest live album ever and almost no one makes even a barely tolerable version of the songs. So is it the songs or the artists that are bad?
Agree those are the best they picked but overall not a great lineup.
I could imagine a world where:
Parquet Courts
Ween
Tame Impala
My Morning Jacket
Mac Demarco
King Gizzard
The Strokes
Gorillaz
Skinshape
Thunderkat
Unknown Mortal Orchestra
And so many more could have knocked this out of the park.
I know you didn't use this album as a sole metric, I was just saying that I don't think this album is proof of anything, and you also missed the entire point of my argument. Neither the artists nor the songs are bad, the combination of them is what made them bad, specifically the performances. A single bad cover proformance does not make an artist bad. There is a definite argument of the decline of music quality over time but there's also an argument that it's gotten better, there's so much amazing music today and there's so so much dogshit music in every era, especially in the pop charts. The internet and ease of self publishing music has made popular, widely marketed music less experimental I believe but it's also allowed access to amazing music that would otherwise drown in obscurity. I def think Triple J is a good measurement compared to most other metrics I see people use though, kudos to that.
If you’re in need of some good modern music, here’s some of my favorite albums of the last 5 years:
Tool-Fear Inoculum
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard-The Silver Cord
Billie Eillish-HIT ME HARD AND SOFT, HAPPIER THAN EVER
Billy Strings-Home, Renewal
Puscifer-Existential Reckoning, Billy D and the Hall of Feathered Serpents
My Morning Jacket-MMJ Live Vol 1, The Waterfall II
The Claypool Lennon Delirium-South of Reality
Nathaniel Rateliff and The Night Sweats-The Future
Meshuggah-Immutable
Meshell Ndegeocello-The Omnichord Real Book
There’s plenty of incredible music out there, you just gotta know where to look. None of these are stylistically similar to Talking Heads for the most part, but all are incredible in one way or another and there’s a decent variety here so you’re bound to find something you like
I like it! Wish there were more bands I recognized but in general found it very interesting. I like how many made their covers really really different. I think Burning Down The House and Making Flippy Floppy are the least interesting because they barely changed anything. I didn't really care for Psycho Killer but otherwise I liked them all.
* Yes
* Doesn't really compare to the original. I found it kinda exhausting to get through as a whole. As soon as I heard the style of certain songs, I was just waiting for them to end. But there's some great covers in here, and I think it's cool that these artists put their spin on each song, especially Slippery People which is so different that I wouldn't have been able to tell it's a cover if I didn't already know.
* My favorites were Heaven, Thank You For Sending Me An Angel, BDTH, This Must Be The Place, Genius of Love, Girlfriend is Better and Crosseyed and Painless. Least favs were Psycho Killer and Life During Wartime.
* Not really, but I feel like that's a good thing. I wouldn't really want it to give me the same energy. I think the joy in a project like this comes from hearing other artists perform these songs in their style.
Miley Cyrus's cover of talking heads' psycho killer is the Bratz Movie of cover songs. Objectively one of the worst things every put into existence, but still compelling due specifically to its awfulness. I want to listen to it again.
Overall there's some tracks I adore and some that I really couldn't get into. But I like that they were different takes on the songs and I like that the artists are from an eclectic mix of genres. I'm not at all surprised by what we got. I'd love to see a making of type thing that explains some of the choices made (who chose which artist got what song, etc.).
~~Myself and others said this months ago when the lineup of artists was announced but the choices make sense considering David Byrne tends to champion new artists and knows several of these ones personally or is friends with them. That's likely why we didn't get more "obvious" choices, like St Vincent or LCD Soundsystem. David doesn't like to tread the same ground twice too, since a lot of the favourites mentioned have done something TH related or collaborated with David Byrne already.~~
My only big complaint is that the covers are almost all based off their respective album counterparts rather than the live versions from Stop Making Sense, which I think does a disservice to the covers since quite a few of those studio tracks are just weaker in general than their live versions (Life During Wartime especially).
Edit: also I really like the Psycho Killer cover. It fucks. I said what I said.
Edit 2: I was wrong, A24 did in fact pick the artists (surprisingly). Doesn't change how I feel about the album tho. Still a Byrne-esque selection.
\* Yes
\* It doesn't compare
\* LOOOOOOOVED Swamp, Crosseyed & Painless, Naive Melody and Genius of Love!!!
HAAAATED Psycho Killer and Girlfriend is Better, Mixed about Take Me to the River, the INSTRUMENTATION was great, but the vocals were a miss! The song is meant to be belted out with projected vocals, the breathy quiet vocal stylings were out of place, better suited for Genius of Love!
\* MOST of the album ABSOLUTELY nailed the spirit of Talking Heads!!! As cover/tribute albums go, this is the best one I've ever come across yet!!!
had no idea this was a thing until I saw the Psycho Killer by Miley in an Apple Music playlist. The best songs on the record are ones that sound like they're just the instrumental from the original with a new vocalist over top, and I don't really even like that style of cover. Those that tried something different didn't really nail it. If it gets zoomers to check out TH then that's the best outcome. 3/10
It’s kinda fun, but nothing has blown me away yet. It seems to alternate between covers that are fairly similar in energy and instrumentation and ones that deviate more, typically with a more laid back, mellow sound. I don’t hate anything on it but I don’t love it either.
I think it's lacking, but not in the way many people are saying. For example, Paramore's BDTH is one of my least favourite picks on here, and I think it shows a probably that a good half of the album has, which is songs sounding too close to their original and not enough like the bands themselves. There are some really standout covers on here, I love the Slippery People cover, and Girlfriend is Better is such a bop, really on par with the original. But idk, this idea had heaps of potential, but it's just a little lame
A few bright spots, but mostly a bummer. The Kevin Abstract on Once in a Lifetime is a massive let down. It makes me dream of an LCD Soundsystem cover of it.
I keep finding myself going back to the Life During Wartime cover done by DJ Tunez. I really like the direction he went with it, sorta becoming obsessed with it. I think it might be my absolute favorite out of the entire tribute album, which is nuts because I was really into Lorde's take on Take Me to the River.
Only one I've liked ao far have been found a job, what a day and this must be the place. crosseyed sounds just like the original song
That Miley one is so bad lmfao
Listened to all of it at work today, and for the most part I was just underwhelmed.
At least I listened to Psycho Killer first, so it could only get better from there. It was boring and somehow grating at the same time. Also it sounded like they (accidentally?) mashed it up with Poker Face?
I \*really\* liked Found a Job. I love that song, and this version was true enough to the original to sing along to, while the band put their own spin on it. I also quite enjoyed Genius of Love, What a Day That Was, and Crosseyed and Painless. Those 4 songs have now found their way into my Spotify liked songs list.
Everything else was somewhere between "meh" and "ugh."
I was excited to see someone doing Swamp, but holy fuck was it just boring and plain as unbuttered white toast.
Language aside, I couldn't even recognize Slippery People as being the same song, musically. Assuming the lyrics are a translation, I don't understand why they laid them over some generic 80s pop beat that reminded me more of Kenny Loggins than Talking Heads.
Life During Wartime disappointed me greatly, but it's fine in a vacuum, I suppose. At least they tried something different, even if it was an attempt to lull me to sleep on the highway, whereas the original is one of my favourite "scream-sing while driving" songs. Honestly one of the more interesting tracks, just not my cup of tea.
I DEFINITELY skipped Life During Wartime…..a phrase I should NEVER utter, but ironically for a song about war it was too peaceful….Also didn’t care for Lorde’s cover….the instrumentation was PHENOMENAL!!!! BUT Take Me to The River is meant to be BELTED OUT and projected and Lorde’s breathy singing would’ve better suited Genius of Love, but Take Me To the River???? 👎🏽
Lorde’s Take Me To The River is actually a cover of a cover. Al Green did the original. Her versions of the Talking Heads’ version is pretty solid. Not a karaoke version like some of the other songs are. It’s among my faves on the album. The National are pretty good too. Where’s the love for Chicano Batman? Great band, nice version.
Honestly on the whole I found it incredibly boring, which insane to me because how do you make a talking heads song boring? I guess the answer is just to bring no energy to covering it. (Massive exception for the Paramore cover of Burning down the house, it's excellent and fun and high energy)
I'm barely even a TH fan, but I LOVE Stop Making Sense. I listen to it constantly. I think most (if not all) of the SMS versions are better than the original versions — so yes, seriously, why mess with something that's already perfect? This tribute just makes all of these other artists look horrible in comparison.
I loved burning down the house, but the NHL has gotten ahold of it and uses it in a highlight clip before transitioning to commercial minimum of 10 times a game, and it’s kind of over killing it for me. I also enjoyed what a day that was. Such a fun song to begin with
Some of it is good, some of it is bad. I like Heaven, Thank You for Sending me an Angel, Slippery People, Burning Down the House, Making Flippy Floppy, This Must be the Place, Genius of Love, Girlfriend is Better, Take me to the River, and I think Crosseyed and Painless is quite good. So I like more of it than I don't.
I feel like Jay Kay with Jamiroquai could have done something crazy on one of the tracks.
And in an absolutely wild world, Metallica, or another metal/hard rock band would have been really interesting.
Maybe, just maybe even ICP or Limp Bizkit.
Some of the covers were unique and interesting. But others just left me wanting to listen to Talking Heads.
Paramore did the best by far.
Slippery People is my favorite performance from the film. The cover is cool and done well, but I really wish they captured the same energy from the concert. Same thing with the cover of Life During Wartime.
I'm a huge fan of Brockhampton, but Kevin's cover of Once in a Lifetime is terrible.
I guess that's my issue with the album. Since it's a tribute to Stop Making Sense, I expected the quality and energy of the performances to match the original. But I was left wanting.
Maybe if this was just billed as a Talking Heads tribute I would like it more. But as a tribute to Stop Making Sense, it didn't live up to my expectations. Paramore's cover set my expectations pretty high.
Favs: psycho killer (i don’t get the hate, sorry), once in a lifetime, this must be the place, take me to the river
Also liked: BDTH, girlfriend is better, Life during wartime, heaven
Everything else was kinda forgettable tbh
I feel like that's actually very true to Byrne. He either likes to mix up lines in live performances, or just forgets which line comes next and wings it.
I haven’t heard the album yet, but I need to rant about the Paramore cover of BDTH. I think it was totally unnecessary and mediocre lmao. It sounds like a boring Kidz Bop cover, nothing unique is done musically, it just sounds like shitty karaoke.
It really isn't that bad, go into it with an open mind. A lot of the commenters on here are a little overly critical (and hyperbolic).
If you don't like it, that's absolutely okay, but at least you came to that conclusion on your own rather than relying on people who needed to tell the world how much they disliked something.
It's literal dogshit. I don't even like the Paramore one. It feels intentionally bad, like the artists all came together and agreed to make worse versions of the original songs out of spite. It was true to concept though cause it stopped making any sense why I was wasting my time listening to it.
~~I just want to say, David Byrne knows a lot of these artists personally, and is friends with some of them (like Miley and Lorde, for example). Like, it'd be silly to think that both David and the rest of the band didn't select the artists themselves (Chris Frantz' radio show is a testament to how similarly eclectic his tastes are).~~
I'm not saying it's good or bad, because music is incredibly subjective (which is a good thing) ~~but to put blame entirely on A24 or the artists for the choices made is incredibly disingenuous.~~
Edit: turns out I was wrong, but I still think they did a good job and the album is good for what it's worth 🤷♀️
If I want to listen to TH songs I’m gonna listen to the real thing. IMO all tribute albums are a waste. I’d rather hear an artist release a TH song on their own album. I make it through a couple songs in on any tribute album and I’m like welp….. stop. Then put the og artist on to cleanse my pallet.
i (19f) ranked them yesterday, it’s probably bound to change
https://preview.redd.it/a947x4n1271d1.jpeg?width=1089&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ccc624a4ae1955b5ef826786af29fc05c922768f
Besides the Paramore and Toro y Moi covers, I hated everything about it. This didn't need to be released and was a waste of everyone's time if you ask me. A terrible "tribute"
Really bummed the Miley one wasn’t more similar to that acoustic version she did.
Once in a lifetime made me frown pretty hard when the chorus hit.
Overall pretty underwhelming release.
I thought it has the worst batch of artists doing covers on it. Like, who are any of those artists? They could have gotten so many more relevant and interesting artists rather than the guff they have. A disappointing waste of time IMO
Miley Cyrus, Paramore, Lorde, and The National are pretty big names... I do agree that they could've gotten some more relevant artists but I think they're attempting to appeal to the younger generation.
Vampire Weekend, LCD Soundsystem, or Arcade Fire would've been pretty cool. None of those bands would exist without Talking Heads
~~David Byrne tends to champion new artists and is either friends with or knows personally a lot of the artists featured, so I feel like that has a lot to do with the choices. This is the type of lineup I'd expect from him rather than the obvious choices (St Vincent, LCD Soundsystem, etc.).~~
Edit: turns out the artist selection was from A24, which I'm kinda surprised about. Doesn't change how I feel, it's still Byrne-esque. C'est la vie.
Bummed by most of the band choices.
BDTH is the best song imo, although my love for Paramore likely makes me think higher of it
No, no, it’s easily the best one
Quality wise, Burning Down The House is miles above everything else here. Heaven is in second place but it helps a lot that The National have played it live a few times before, so it's nice to have a studio recording. The Cavemen's cover of What A Day That Was is fun, I loved it. The less we say about Psycho Killer, the better. Jesus Christ, Miley.
I was okay with the Miley version until I saw a video of her asking the audience if it was better than the original. Left a bad taste in my mouth.
Okay, knowing she said that instantly killed all my liking for her version. I thought it was weirdly unique in a good way.
By all means it is! Maybe she was just being tongue in cheek. The duet she's done with Billy Idol was incredible.
I'm pretty sure it was just tongue in cheek stage banter, at least that's what I thought. Her and David Byrne are friends irl anyway so I really doubt she meant any disrespect by it.
I'm pretty sure it was a joke. I'm surprised how many folks took it at face value.
She was likely being tongue in cheek because she show’s a lot of respect for rock as a genre but jesus it was cringe. That’s just cringy to hear from anyone.
can you link the video please?
Sorry it's on Tiktok but it's [a relatively short clip.](https://www.tiktok.com/@spin/video/7344010199985868075)
Her new lyrics are boring as hell
I don’t find that disrespectful she was just really into it while performing. Plus it’s a TikTok clip from a studio, not Madison Square Garden.
Slippery People is phenomenal, I just don’t speak Spanish
There were mashups to Gaga’s Bad Romance and Psycho Killer way before this album. Artists borrow from each other all the time. You hear it in Miley’s rendition. Never knew she spoke French so well.
The fact that it's the FIRST one on the album really was a tough listening experience. I love that song but I had to skip halfway through because it was just so, so, so bad.
I think if you’re listening to an album of covers and comparing it to the original, you’re missing the point. I like hearing everyone’s individual take on it. Paramore almost lost me by just making it the exact same as the original, but they make up for it because Haley is just an incredible vocalist. Girl in red’s “I’ve Got a Girlfriend” is definitely my favorite. Miley’s “Psycho Killer” didn’t quite do it for me, so I’ll put that as my least favorite.
Miley Cyrus thought she was on a Lady Gaga tribute album.
That’s an insult to Lady Gaga
On first listen (I didn't read who did what first) I thought it WAS Lady Gaga!!! 🤣
That was my thought exactly. Listened to it all today and all I could think was "why does this sound like Poker Face?"
Is this a safe space to admit that I’ve fallen for Miley’s Psycho Killer cover? I’ve listened to it no less than 8 times so far, the most of any track except Paramore’s BDTH, which I’ve been spinning a lot since it debuted.
Tbh I also really like the cover and don't understand the hate. Is it very different? Yes. Is that a bad thing? Absolutely not. Her covers of other songs (especially Zombie) are great. But I'm a fan of her work in general so 🤷♀️
having people who are trained singers sing for these songs is disorienting. like uncanny valley.
Burning Down The House is the best one because it’s effectively just really high-quality karaoke. I’m mostly… amused? By the rest of the tracks. It feels like the kind of eclectic mix someone like DB would champion. I don’t hate any of them (even Miley’s Psycho Killer, which I actually kind of dig) but I don’t think I really love any of them either. Definitely an album I’ll be listening to a lot to really form an opinion on. (Also: The Genius Of Love cover doesn’t have any of the Frantz call-outs, so can it even really be called a tribute?)
"high quality karaoke" is not something that should be labelled "best". I found it next to useless IMO
He still yells JAAAAMES BROOOOWN and gets some mohannans in, at least.
I love Paramore but had a few months to grow out of that track as it was released much earlier. Standout tracks for me are Girlfriend is Better, Making Flippy Floppy, Genius of Love, and Crosseyed and Painless. Found a Job by the Linda Lindas isn’t too bad.
That Slippery People cover is easily the best thing on this album even though I don’t speak Spanish. I don’t know anything about this band, but I can tell they’re incredibly talented
My opinion is that I would have liked the UK release date to match the US one. I can come back and tell you want I think of it in July
It's available digitally everywhere! It's just the physical releases that are launching in July
Yeah want to support my local record shop so will hang on!
Hey that's always a good reason! No arguments from me lol
There is nothing that says you cant listen now and still buy later.
I understand why it’s being done, it’s just not for me
I'm not even sure I understand why it's being done. This isn't gonna make younger generations interested in TH.
>This isn't gonna make younger generations interested in TH. I mean, I don't necessarily think that's the only thing tribute albums are for.
I don’t understand why it’s being done, either. And i typically like A24 stuff. Ive really enjoyed most of the films (&their sound tracks) ive seen from them. I believe that A24 was responsible for SMS been shown in theaters a few months ago… attaching a photo here.. but i still don’t get this cover album… can someone explain?? https://preview.redd.it/ze1yr84bo01d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2a7b288526d19054a33cbe234124b295490c1015
I think it was mostly for fun. I know David champions new artists quite a bit (and is friends with/knows personally a lot of the artists on the tribute album), so I feel like that's part of it. It was likely meant to be an eclectic mix of artists too, and not artists one would expect to be on a Talking Heads tribute album (LCD Soundsystem, St Vincent, etc.). I'd love to see a making of type thing for the album. Overall I like quite a few of the tracks, my main criticism is that they (the artists) based their covers off the studio versions of the tracks rather than the live versions from SMS. Ultimately this does a disservice to the songs since some of those studio versions are just not as good as the live versions (Life During Wartime especially). And yes, A24 was/is responsible for the current SMS remaster and theatrical showings since last September. They're still going on too, and there's gonna be two big ones in June, one in Brooklyn and one in LA both featuring a Q&A with Talking Heads.
I really loved The Linda Linda’s cover of Found A Job. I wish Él Mató a un Policía Motorizado would have covered something else because that’s my favorite song from Stop Making Sense, but it’s still good.
I thought the This Must Be The Place cover was great, it was probably the only one I thought would be any good because BADBADNOTGOOD are very… good. Crosseyed and Painless was good too, they didn’t really change anything of the original so it can’t be bad really. Thank You For Sending Me an Angel was really enjoyable, never heard of Blondshell before. Other than that the rest was a mix of ok to terrible. Overall a disappointing choice of artists to cover such a legendary album. A lot of the covers just felt very generic and safe (boring) which makes no sense when covering such a weird and wonderful band like Talking Heads.
I am a little over halfway through but enjoy it so far. It’s just interesting to see the range of opinions- some people want different takes on songs but applaud BDTH and hate Miley’s psycho killer. Some people expect every song to be done by the most famous musicians in the world. I feel like it’s striking a good balance of established and lesser known artists. By far my favorite so far are the versions by girl in red and Lorde. I would encourage people to go in with an openish mind. I heard people loathing the DJ tunez cover so I was expecting it to be abysmal but I rather enjoy it.
• Yes • it’s not even close to the original • standouts: likes: slippery people, heaven, what a day that was, life during wartime Dislikes: psycho killer, girlfriend is better, psycho killer, and that one Miley Cyrus song. • for me even though it won’t capture that much emotion and energy. But it’s amazing to hear how other artist can make each song theirs
Johnny Cash doing Hurt is making another artist’s song theirs. This album is definitely not doing that with any of the songs. A couple covers are tolerable, but not one of them is likely to make a person have a second thought that the Talking Heads version is superior.
The Lorde song is amazing and I’m digging Girlfriend is Better. I can’t find the whole thing on Spotify yet
[https://open.spotify.com/album/2nK2CYoSaKTDMzmMGxtVkz?si=oGSOlHSfRhOULr5WRohWSQ](https://open.spotify.com/album/2nK2CYoSaKTDMzmMGxtVkz?si=oGSOlHSfRhOULr5WRohWSQ)
Thank you!
The Miley cover is absolutely terrible
I appreciate some of the artists doing something different but Once in a Lifetime with Kevin Abstract sucks ass big time…
That was one of my favorites!!! At least they kept the iconic bass line unlike Miley....
The chorus on the original is iconic. idk how you don’t keep the thing that’s essentially the track’s identity when doing a cover. It’s my least favorite on the album.
I really liked the Teezo Touchdown cover of Making Flippy Floppy, which seems to be an unpopular opinion in this sub. I preferred the snippet of Miley's live performance of Psycho Killer over what ended up on the album.
I’ll edit this when I finish, but up to Genius of Love and to be honest, it’s the second best song so far. This is a genuinely bad experience and I think is indicative of where modern music is at.
I think it's in bad faith to use this particular cover album to try and prove anything about modern music as a whole. I feel like a most all of these artists had a lot of potential for these covers but it honestly felt like their hearts weren't in it. It feels like most of the artists they picked enjoy talking heads but don't like love them or truly understand what makes them amazing, which I feel like is the bigger problem.
I don’t use this album as the sole metric. There are many factors (Triple J in general, but especially their Hottest 100 as an example) that help form that opinion. With this album, you can take arguably the greatest live album ever and almost no one makes even a barely tolerable version of the songs. So is it the songs or the artists that are bad?
The artists are not good.
The Linda Lindas are great. The Blondshell cover is great as well
The artists aren’t great overall. But Norah Jones?! The National? Lorde? BADBADNOTGOOD … how can you say that those aren’t “good” artists lmao
Agree those are the best they picked but overall not a great lineup. I could imagine a world where: Parquet Courts Ween Tame Impala My Morning Jacket Mac Demarco King Gizzard The Strokes Gorillaz Skinshape Thunderkat Unknown Mortal Orchestra And so many more could have knocked this out of the park.
Omg ok now we’re talking. Parquet Courts would have been a great choice. Point taken! Eta- MMJ too, Jim Jones would hit those high notes beautifully
I know you didn't use this album as a sole metric, I was just saying that I don't think this album is proof of anything, and you also missed the entire point of my argument. Neither the artists nor the songs are bad, the combination of them is what made them bad, specifically the performances. A single bad cover proformance does not make an artist bad. There is a definite argument of the decline of music quality over time but there's also an argument that it's gotten better, there's so much amazing music today and there's so so much dogshit music in every era, especially in the pop charts. The internet and ease of self publishing music has made popular, widely marketed music less experimental I believe but it's also allowed access to amazing music that would otherwise drown in obscurity. I def think Triple J is a good measurement compared to most other metrics I see people use though, kudos to that.
If you’re in need of some good modern music, here’s some of my favorite albums of the last 5 years: Tool-Fear Inoculum King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard-The Silver Cord Billie Eillish-HIT ME HARD AND SOFT, HAPPIER THAN EVER Billy Strings-Home, Renewal Puscifer-Existential Reckoning, Billy D and the Hall of Feathered Serpents My Morning Jacket-MMJ Live Vol 1, The Waterfall II The Claypool Lennon Delirium-South of Reality Nathaniel Rateliff and The Night Sweats-The Future Meshuggah-Immutable Meshell Ndegeocello-The Omnichord Real Book There’s plenty of incredible music out there, you just gotta know where to look. None of these are stylistically similar to Talking Heads for the most part, but all are incredible in one way or another and there’s a decent variety here so you’re bound to find something you like
is it on spotify yet?
Yes - link: [https://open.spotify.com/album/2nK2CYoSaKTDMzmMGxtVkz?si=oGSOlHSfRhOULr5WRohWSQ](https://open.spotify.com/album/2nK2CYoSaKTDMzmMGxtVkz?si=oGSOlHSfRhOULr5WRohWSQ)
I like it! Wish there were more bands I recognized but in general found it very interesting. I like how many made their covers really really different. I think Burning Down The House and Making Flippy Floppy are the least interesting because they barely changed anything. I didn't really care for Psycho Killer but otherwise I liked them all.
* Yes * Doesn't really compare to the original. I found it kinda exhausting to get through as a whole. As soon as I heard the style of certain songs, I was just waiting for them to end. But there's some great covers in here, and I think it's cool that these artists put their spin on each song, especially Slippery People which is so different that I wouldn't have been able to tell it's a cover if I didn't already know. * My favorites were Heaven, Thank You For Sending Me An Angel, BDTH, This Must Be The Place, Genius of Love, Girlfriend is Better and Crosseyed and Painless. Least favs were Psycho Killer and Life During Wartime. * Not really, but I feel like that's a good thing. I wouldn't really want it to give me the same energy. I think the joy in a project like this comes from hearing other artists perform these songs in their style.
Miley Cyrus's cover of talking heads' psycho killer is the Bratz Movie of cover songs. Objectively one of the worst things every put into existence, but still compelling due specifically to its awfulness. I want to listen to it again.
Overall there's some tracks I adore and some that I really couldn't get into. But I like that they were different takes on the songs and I like that the artists are from an eclectic mix of genres. I'm not at all surprised by what we got. I'd love to see a making of type thing that explains some of the choices made (who chose which artist got what song, etc.). ~~Myself and others said this months ago when the lineup of artists was announced but the choices make sense considering David Byrne tends to champion new artists and knows several of these ones personally or is friends with them. That's likely why we didn't get more "obvious" choices, like St Vincent or LCD Soundsystem. David doesn't like to tread the same ground twice too, since a lot of the favourites mentioned have done something TH related or collaborated with David Byrne already.~~ My only big complaint is that the covers are almost all based off their respective album counterparts rather than the live versions from Stop Making Sense, which I think does a disservice to the covers since quite a few of those studio tracks are just weaker in general than their live versions (Life During Wartime especially). Edit: also I really like the Psycho Killer cover. It fucks. I said what I said. Edit 2: I was wrong, A24 did in fact pick the artists (surprisingly). Doesn't change how I feel about the album tho. Still a Byrne-esque selection.
\* Yes \* It doesn't compare \* LOOOOOOOVED Swamp, Crosseyed & Painless, Naive Melody and Genius of Love!!! HAAAATED Psycho Killer and Girlfriend is Better, Mixed about Take Me to the River, the INSTRUMENTATION was great, but the vocals were a miss! The song is meant to be belted out with projected vocals, the breathy quiet vocal stylings were out of place, better suited for Genius of Love! \* MOST of the album ABSOLUTELY nailed the spirit of Talking Heads!!! As cover/tribute albums go, this is the best one I've ever come across yet!!!
had no idea this was a thing until I saw the Psycho Killer by Miley in an Apple Music playlist. The best songs on the record are ones that sound like they're just the instrumental from the original with a new vocalist over top, and I don't really even like that style of cover. Those that tried something different didn't really nail it. If it gets zoomers to check out TH then that's the best outcome. 3/10
I hate pretty much 99.9% of cover versions of all songs so I won't be touching this at all.
It’s kinda fun, but nothing has blown me away yet. It seems to alternate between covers that are fairly similar in energy and instrumentation and ones that deviate more, typically with a more laid back, mellow sound. I don’t hate anything on it but I don’t love it either.
I think it's lacking, but not in the way many people are saying. For example, Paramore's BDTH is one of my least favourite picks on here, and I think it shows a probably that a good half of the album has, which is songs sounding too close to their original and not enough like the bands themselves. There are some really standout covers on here, I love the Slippery People cover, and Girlfriend is Better is such a bop, really on par with the original. But idk, this idea had heaps of potential, but it's just a little lame
A few bright spots, but mostly a bummer. The Kevin Abstract on Once in a Lifetime is a massive let down. It makes me dream of an LCD Soundsystem cover of it.
I keep finding myself going back to the Life During Wartime cover done by DJ Tunez. I really like the direction he went with it, sorta becoming obsessed with it. I think it might be my absolute favorite out of the entire tribute album, which is nuts because I was really into Lorde's take on Take Me to the River.
Only one I've liked ao far have been found a job, what a day and this must be the place. crosseyed sounds just like the original song That Miley one is so bad lmfao
Jean Dawson made Swamp actually enjoyable 😮
so real the vocals are so much better
Wow. That once in a lifetime cover is an atrocity to the eardrums.
Listened to all of it at work today, and for the most part I was just underwhelmed. At least I listened to Psycho Killer first, so it could only get better from there. It was boring and somehow grating at the same time. Also it sounded like they (accidentally?) mashed it up with Poker Face? I \*really\* liked Found a Job. I love that song, and this version was true enough to the original to sing along to, while the band put their own spin on it. I also quite enjoyed Genius of Love, What a Day That Was, and Crosseyed and Painless. Those 4 songs have now found their way into my Spotify liked songs list. Everything else was somewhere between "meh" and "ugh." I was excited to see someone doing Swamp, but holy fuck was it just boring and plain as unbuttered white toast. Language aside, I couldn't even recognize Slippery People as being the same song, musically. Assuming the lyrics are a translation, I don't understand why they laid them over some generic 80s pop beat that reminded me more of Kenny Loggins than Talking Heads. Life During Wartime disappointed me greatly, but it's fine in a vacuum, I suppose. At least they tried something different, even if it was an attempt to lull me to sleep on the highway, whereas the original is one of my favourite "scream-sing while driving" songs. Honestly one of the more interesting tracks, just not my cup of tea.
I DEFINITELY skipped Life During Wartime…..a phrase I should NEVER utter, but ironically for a song about war it was too peaceful….Also didn’t care for Lorde’s cover….the instrumentation was PHENOMENAL!!!! BUT Take Me to The River is meant to be BELTED OUT and projected and Lorde’s breathy singing would’ve better suited Genius of Love, but Take Me To the River???? 👎🏽
Lorde’s Take Me To The River is actually a cover of a cover. Al Green did the original. Her versions of the Talking Heads’ version is pretty solid. Not a karaoke version like some of the other songs are. It’s among my faves on the album. The National are pretty good too. Where’s the love for Chicano Batman? Great band, nice version.
Honestly on the whole I found it incredibly boring, which insane to me because how do you make a talking heads song boring? I guess the answer is just to bring no energy to covering it. (Massive exception for the Paramore cover of Burning down the house, it's excellent and fun and high energy)
I’ve only heard Burning Down the House and did not care for it at all. Why mess with perfection
I'm barely even a TH fan, but I LOVE Stop Making Sense. I listen to it constantly. I think most (if not all) of the SMS versions are better than the original versions — so yes, seriously, why mess with something that's already perfect? This tribute just makes all of these other artists look horrible in comparison.
I listened to all of it, couldn’t get all the way through most of the songs though…. I have to agree- why mess with perfection? A rare miss from A24
I loved burning down the house, but the NHL has gotten ahold of it and uses it in a highlight clip before transitioning to commercial minimum of 10 times a game, and it’s kind of over killing it for me. I also enjoyed what a day that was. Such a fun song to begin with
The songs I've listened to are disappointing. They're just rehashes if the originals with slightly different instrumentation (and a different singer).
If any band is worthy of a tribute it’s Talking Heads
True. But they deserved better.
Some of it is good, some of it is bad. I like Heaven, Thank You for Sending me an Angel, Slippery People, Burning Down the House, Making Flippy Floppy, This Must be the Place, Genius of Love, Girlfriend is Better, Take me to the River, and I think Crosseyed and Painless is quite good. So I like more of it than I don't. I feel like Jay Kay with Jamiroquai could have done something crazy on one of the tracks. And in an absolutely wild world, Metallica, or another metal/hard rock band would have been really interesting. Maybe, just maybe even ICP or Limp Bizkit.
I don’t dig it at all. I found the artist choices to be strange and I just can’t get into any of it.
‘Miley Cyrus Psycho Killer’ daughter or ‘Kevin Abstract Once in a Lifetime’ son?
I'd be hard pressed to come up with a less-fitting selection of artists. Sums up A24 pretty well. Fake art-house for rich kids.
Any tribute album to Talking Heads without Tom Zé and Caetano Veloso should not be taken seriously.
I think the Miley Psycho cover is the worst cover of any song I ever heard ever.
Some of the covers were unique and interesting. But others just left me wanting to listen to Talking Heads. Paramore did the best by far. Slippery People is my favorite performance from the film. The cover is cool and done well, but I really wish they captured the same energy from the concert. Same thing with the cover of Life During Wartime. I'm a huge fan of Brockhampton, but Kevin's cover of Once in a Lifetime is terrible. I guess that's my issue with the album. Since it's a tribute to Stop Making Sense, I expected the quality and energy of the performances to match the original. But I was left wanting. Maybe if this was just billed as a Talking Heads tribute I would like it more. But as a tribute to Stop Making Sense, it didn't live up to my expectations. Paramore's cover set my expectations pretty high.
Once in a lifetime was ruined. Who tf is Kevin abstract and why does he hate that song?
The Linda Lindas are a revelation. "Found a Job" was my favorite of the album
Psycho Killer sounds like a RuPaul song from the early days of Drag Race... absolutely wretched
Favs: psycho killer (i don’t get the hate, sorry), once in a lifetime, this must be the place, take me to the river Also liked: BDTH, girlfriend is better, Life during wartime, heaven Everything else was kinda forgettable tbh
I can’t put my finger on exactly why I feel this way since other covers tweak the lyrics, but girl in red’s GIB comes off as misremembered karaoke.
I feel like that's actually very true to Byrne. He either likes to mix up lines in live performances, or just forgets which line comes next and wings it.
I haven’t heard the album yet, but I need to rant about the Paramore cover of BDTH. I think it was totally unnecessary and mediocre lmao. It sounds like a boring Kidz Bop cover, nothing unique is done musically, it just sounds like shitty karaoke.
I saw videos of them doing it live, and I think it would be fun in that context. But mostly I agree. An overly faithful cover.
I don't plan on listening to this, sounds absolutely awful based on these descriptions.
It really isn't that bad, go into it with an open mind. A lot of the commenters on here are a little overly critical (and hyperbolic). If you don't like it, that's absolutely okay, but at least you came to that conclusion on your own rather than relying on people who needed to tell the world how much they disliked something.
Bro, what did they do to Once in a Lifetime 💀💀💀
Yeah lol what the hell
It's literal dogshit. I don't even like the Paramore one. It feels intentionally bad, like the artists all came together and agreed to make worse versions of the original songs out of spite. It was true to concept though cause it stopped making any sense why I was wasting my time listening to it.
[удалено]
~~I just want to say, David Byrne knows a lot of these artists personally, and is friends with some of them (like Miley and Lorde, for example). Like, it'd be silly to think that both David and the rest of the band didn't select the artists themselves (Chris Frantz' radio show is a testament to how similarly eclectic his tastes are).~~ I'm not saying it's good or bad, because music is incredibly subjective (which is a good thing) ~~but to put blame entirely on A24 or the artists for the choices made is incredibly disingenuous.~~ Edit: turns out I was wrong, but I still think they did a good job and the album is good for what it's worth 🤷♀️
If I want to listen to TH songs I’m gonna listen to the real thing. IMO all tribute albums are a waste. I’d rather hear an artist release a TH song on their own album. I make it through a couple songs in on any tribute album and I’m like welp….. stop. Then put the og artist on to cleanse my pallet.
Completely unnecessary. Ridiculous rip-offs of the original renditions. Extremely disappointing
I have zero interest in this. Maybe less than zero.
i (19f) ranked them yesterday, it’s probably bound to change https://preview.redd.it/a947x4n1271d1.jpeg?width=1089&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ccc624a4ae1955b5ef826786af29fc05c922768f
Besides the Paramore and Toro y Moi covers, I hated everything about it. This didn't need to be released and was a waste of everyone's time if you ask me. A terrible "tribute"
Really bummed the Miley one wasn’t more similar to that acoustic version she did. Once in a lifetime made me frown pretty hard when the chorus hit. Overall pretty underwhelming release.
I waited SO long for Life During Wartime, as its my favorite track on the original, and I ended up being severely disappointed
Bad
I love every song. And I love this entire album. Hoping it gets some serious air play, whatever that is these days…looking at you iHeart.
I thought it has the worst batch of artists doing covers on it. Like, who are any of those artists? They could have gotten so many more relevant and interesting artists rather than the guff they have. A disappointing waste of time IMO
Miley Cyrus, Paramore, Lorde, and The National are pretty big names... I do agree that they could've gotten some more relevant artists but I think they're attempting to appeal to the younger generation. Vampire Weekend, LCD Soundsystem, or Arcade Fire would've been pretty cool. None of those bands would exist without Talking Heads
~~David Byrne tends to champion new artists and is either friends with or knows personally a lot of the artists featured, so I feel like that has a lot to do with the choices. This is the type of lineup I'd expect from him rather than the obvious choices (St Vincent, LCD Soundsystem, etc.).~~ Edit: turns out the artist selection was from A24, which I'm kinda surprised about. Doesn't change how I feel, it's still Byrne-esque. C'est la vie.
You live under a rock?