TALKING HEADS
Naked (1988)
Fly/Sire
Produced by STEVE LILLYWHITE

Talking Heads' final album feels a bit anticlimactic because it's so reactionary. Criticism of the conventional structures of LITTLE CREATURES and TRUE STORIES led to a return to an expanded lineup for jam sessions in Paris, with the anti-Spector/counter-Eno Steve Lillywhite (then most famous for his work with U2, now a very rich man thanks to Dave Matthews) presiding. The songs that resulted weren't bad, but in many ways the album this wanted to be had already been made, and we inevitably have to judge the work on the basis set by REMAIN IN LIGHT and FEAR OF MUSIC, and the comparison is far from flattering.

Once you have some patience, this is an interesting record, though it's more vanilla than any Heads record has a right to be and offers only one real classic in the clever, defiantly unconventional "(Nothing But) Flowers." David Byrne improvised the bulk of his lyrics, and it shows, especially on clumsy numbers like "Ruby Dear" and the embarrassing "Big Daddy." By contrast, he also comes up with some of his finest writing to date with two cuts whose themes wil haunt you in your sleep: "The Democratic Circus" and the chilling "Mommy Daddy You and I." Taken into perspective with the equally disturbing and fascinating but considerably less sophisticated songs "Bill," "Cool Water," and "The Facts of Life," you might call this the most serious Heads album. Maybe it's not an accident that it lacks the enthusiastic spark of all seven that came before it.

Byrne sounds like an old man on the first single and opening track, "Blind," singing about some of the weightiest issues in the Heads' catalog to date, and like a lot of the music here, save the only two joyful moments ("Mr. Jones" and "Totally Nude"), it's crafty but feels extremely labored. We can only speculate about what this meant. Maybe the band had said all that they had to say and it needed to end (but the subsequent release of one of their greatest songs ever, "Sax & Violins," seems to contradict that idea). Maybe Steve Lillywhite was a poor match for this band. (Today, that's nearly indisputable.) Considering both the band's previous path and their concurrent side projects, I have a theory of my own. The Heads' breakup was an abortive, abrupt move, and my guess is that NAKED was simply the first step in an evolutionary process that was never finished. We will never know where they would have gone from here, and that's a shame.