Speaking in Tongues is the fifth studio album by the band Talking Heads, released in 1983.
The album was a commercial breakthrough that produced the band's first (and only) American Top 10 hit, "Burning Down the House", which was accompanied by a promotional video. The following tour was documented in Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense, which generated a live album of the same name. (The concert film and live album's title comes from the repeated phrase "Stop making sense!" during the song "Girlfriend Is Better".) In addition, the album crossed over to the dance charts, peaking at number two for six weeks. In 2012, Slant Magazine listed the album at #89 on its list of "Best Albums of the 1980s".
David Byrne designed the cover for the general release of the album. Artist Robert Rauschenberg won a Grammy Award for his work on the limited-edition LP version. This album featured a clear vinyl disc in clear plastic packaging along with three clear plastic discs printed with similar collages in three different colors. Original cassette copies of the album have special extended versions of "Making Flippy Floppy", "Girlfriend Is Better", "Slippery People", "I Get Wild/Wild Gravity" and "Moon Rocks".
The album was re-released in February 2006 as a remastered DualDisc. It contains the extended versions of the songs found on the original cassette, and includes two additional tracks ("Two Note Swivel" and an alternate mix of "Burning Down the House"). The DVD-A side includes both stereo and 5.1 surround high resolution (96 kHz/24bit) mixes, as well as a Dolby Digital 5.1 version of the album, a new alternate version of "Burning Down the House" with the emphasis on experimenting the possibilities of surround sound, and videos for "Burning Down the House" and "This Must Be the Place" (videos are two channel Dolby Digital only). In Europe, it was released as a CD+DVDA two disc set rather than a single DualDisc. The reissue was produced by Andy Zax with Talking Heads.
Byrne has said, as a partial explanation of the album's title, "I originally sang nonsense, and uh, made words to fit that. That worked out all right."Speaking in Tongues is the fifth studio album by the band Talking Heads, released in 1983.
The album was a commercial breakthrough that produced the band's first (and only) American Top 10 hit, "Burning Down the House", which was accompanied by a promotional video. The following tour was documented in Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense, which generated a live album of the same name. (The concert film and live album's title comes from the repeated phrase "Stop making sense!" during the song "Girlfriend Is Better".) In addition, the album crossed over to the dance charts, peaking at number two for six weeks. In 2012, Slant Magazine listed the album at #89 on its list of "Best Albums of the 1980s".
David Byrne designed the cover for the general release of the album. Artist Robert Rauschenberg won a Grammy Award for his work on the limited-edition LP version. This album featured a clear vinyl disc in clear plastic packaging along with three clear plastic discs printed with similar collages in three different colors. Original cassette copies of the album have special extended versions of "Making Flippy Floppy", "Girlfriend Is Better", "Slippery People", "I Get Wild/Wild Gravity" and "Moon Rocks".
The album was re-released in February 2006 as a remastered DualDisc. It contains the extended versions of the songs found on the original cassette, and includes two additional tracks ("Two Note Swivel" and an alternate mix of "Burning Down the House"). The DVD-A side includes both stereo and 5.1 surround high resolution (96 kHz/24bit) mixes, as well as a Dolby Digital 5.1 version of the album, a new alternate version of "Burning Down the House" with the emphasis on experimenting the possibilities of surround sound, and videos for "Burning Down the House" and "This Must Be the Place" (videos are two channel Dolby Digital only). In Europe, it was released as a CD+DVDA two disc set rather than a single DualDisc. The reissue was produced by Andy Zax with Talking Heads.
Byrne has said, as a partial explanation of the album's title, "I originally sang nonsense, and uh, made words to fit that. That worked out all right."false2023-10-18 12:10:58Speaking in Tongues7.519831983-01-011983-01-0141Alternative RockArt RockElectronicFunkIndie RockNew WavePopRockSynth-PopArt PopSynth Funk111396215807636d489b1-fe8a-3923-841d-c7ce2789c02fa94a7155-c79d-4409-9fcf-220cb0e4dc3a8a7a9db3-f87b-37d5-96a6-67485a8792e6/media/data/media5/Music/Talking Heads/Speaking in Tongues (1983)/folder.jpgTalking HeadsAlbumArtistTalking HeadsArtistTalking HeadsTalking HeadsTalking Heads were an American new wave band formed in 1975 in New York City. The band was composed of David Byrne (lead vocals, guitar), Chris Frantz (drums), Tina Weymouth (bass) and Jerry Harrison (keyboards, guitar). Described as "one of the most critically acclaimed bands of the '80s," Talking Heads helped to pioneer new wave music by combining elements of punk, art rock, funk, and world music with "an anxious yet clean-cut image".
Byrne, Frantz, and Weymouth met as freshmen at the Rhode Island School of Design, where Byrne and Frantz were part of a band called the Artistics.: 24 The trio moved to New York City in 1975, adopted the name Talking Heads, joined the New York punk scene, and recruited Harrison to round out the band. Their debut album, Talking Heads: 77, was released in 1977 to positive reviews. They collaborated with the British producer Brian Eno on the acclaimed albums More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978), Fear of Music (1979), and Remain in Light (1980), which blended their art school sensibilities with influence from artists such as Parliament-Funkadelic and Fela Kuti. From the early 1980s, they included additional musicians in their recording sessions and shows, including guitarist Adrian Belew, keyboardist Bernie Worrell, singer Nona Hendryx, and bassist Busta Jones.
Talking Heads reached their commercial peak in 1983 with the U.S. Top 10 hit "Burning Down the House" from the album Speaking in Tongues. In 1984, they released the concert film Stop Making Sense, directed by Jonathan Demme. For these performances, they were joined by Worrell, the guitarist Alex Weir, the percussionist Steve Scales and the singers Lynn Mabry and Ednah Holt. In 1985, Talking Heads released their best-selling album, Little Creatures. They produced a soundtrack album for Byrne's film True Stories (1986), and released their final album, worldbeat-influenced Naked (1988), before disbanding in 1991. Without Byrne, the other band members performed under the name Shrunken Heads, and released an album, No Talking, Just Head, as the Heads in 1996.
In 2002, Talking Heads were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Four of their albums appeared in Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003, and three of their songs ("Psycho Killer", "Life During Wartime", and "Once in a Lifetime") were included among the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. Talking Heads were also number 64 on VH1's list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In the 2011 update of Rolling Stone's list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time", they were ranked number 100.