Word: soundness
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Byrne is anelusive writer, one moment singing about love and sensations, the next saying something like "be a little more selfish/it might do you some good." Brrrrr. With a voice that is a hybrid of Donald (Steely Dan) Fagen and David Bowie, Byrne has a tendency to sound spacey and detached. He compounds the effect by singing from an appropriately spacey and detached point of view. In nearly every song the singer marvels at some new sensual experience, the problems of life or his friends. His outlook recalls those aliens in "Star Trek" who rhapsodize about the flood of feeling...
Guitarist-keyboard player Jerry Harrison joins with Byrne to handle the guitar work, which is spare and economical to suit the New Wave fashion. Nobody stretches out for a solo on this record; the effect is to provide a tight ensemble sound to back the eccentric Byrne's lyrics. The music is danceable and listenable without being hard on the ears, but it isn't all that exciting. It reminds the listener of the blander moments of the new Steely Dan record, but with much sparer instrumentation...
...short the main appeal of this record is its blend of musical and lyrical avantgardness. The Head strive for a pop sound that is quirky enough to interest an intellectual audience, and Talking Heads: 77 is truly a modernist product to use the old sales pitch: If you liked Waiting for Godot, you'll love this album. But if you are turned off by the idea of troubled monologues, spoken by a "70s Man" surveying the new vacancy, devoid of the anger that animates a punk like Johnny Rotten, then save your bread. "Q'est-ce que c'est Talking...
Policymakers sometimes fail to use sound intelligence when it is offered. President Johnson disregarded the discouraging CIA reports on Viet Nam; they were not what he wanted to hear. The White House rejected CIA warnings of a Middle East war in 1973. Why would the Arabs want to start a war they could not win? reasoned the policymakers. It did not occur to them that the Arabs could win something just by fighting better than they had the last time...
...state of the economy, and Economic Correspondent George Taber, who interviewed Administration policymakers. Taber also compiled background on Treasury Secretary Michael Blumenthal and found that "it's impossible to spend more than five minutes around the man and not call him Mike. Mr. Secretary just wouldn't sound right." In addition to conducting interviews at the Treasury, Taber spent some time in Blumenthal's limousine, chatting with the Secretary as he went from one meeting to another. In the course of those drives, Taber learned that in Secret Service lingo, Blumenthal is known as "Fencing Master...