It's the summer of 1979. A 15-year-old boy listens to WNEW on the radio in his bedroom in Brooklyn. A monotone voice (it's the singer's) announces into dead air in between songs "The Talking Heads have a new album, it's called Fear of Music" - and everything spins outward from that one moment. Jonathan Lethem treats Fear of Music (the third album by the Talking Heads, and the first produced by Brian Eno) as a masterpiece - edgy, paranoid, funky, addictive, rhythmic, repetitive, spooky and fun. He scratches obsessively at the album's songs, guitars, rhythms, lyrics, packaging, downtown origins, and legacy, showing how Fear of Music hints at the directions (positive and negative) the band would take in the future. Lethem transports us again to the New York City of another time - tackling one of his great adolescent obsessions and illuminating the ways in which we fall in and out of love with works of art.

Two iconic bands. An unforgettable life. One of the most dynamic groups of the ‘70s and ‘80s, Talking Heads, founded by drummer Chris Frantz, his girlfriend Tina Weymouth, and lead singer David Byrne, burst onto the music scene, playing at CBGBs, touring Europe with the Ramones, and creating hits like “Psycho Killer” and “Burning Down the House” that captured the post-baby boom generation’s intense, affectless style. In Remain in Love, Frantz writes about the beginnings of Talking Heads—their days as art students in Providence, moving to the sparse Chrystie Street loft Frantz, Weymouth, and Byrne shared where the music that defined an era was written. With never-before-seen photos and immersive vivid detail, Frantz describes life on tour, down to the meals eaten and the clothes worn—and reveals the mechanics of a long and complicated working relationship with a mercurial frontman. At the heart of Remain in Love is Frantz’s love for Weymouth: their once-in-a-lifetime connection as lovers, musicians, and bandmates, and how their creativity surged with the creation of their own band Tom Tom Club, bringing a fresh Afro-Caribbean beat to hits like “Genius of Love.” Studded with memorable places and names from the era—Grace Jones, Andy Warhol, Stephen Sprouse, Lou Reed, Brian Eno, and Debbie Harry among them—Remain in Love is a frank and open memoir of an emblematic life in music and in love.

(Book). A superbly illustrated, in-depth examination of the stories, events, places, and characters that inspired the songs of the Talking Heads, arguably the most significant band to emerge from the late-'70s New York punk scene based around CBGB's club. Led by guitarist-vocalist David Byrne, the band enjoyed major chart success on both sides of the Atlantic with infectious, incendiary singles like "Road to Nowhere," "Psycho Killer," and "Once in a Lifetime." During their influential seventeen-year career, Talking Heads assembled a body of raw yet intellectual rock music second to none. Then in 2002, having vowed to never work together again, the four original Heads reconvened and played live when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Ian Gittins has written about music and popular culture for fifteen years for such varied publications as Melody Maker , Q , The Guardian , Daily Telegraph , Time Out , MTV , and the New York Times . He lives in London, England.

A fascinating glimpse behind the big suits and deadpan looks to the heart and soul of a band that made it big by playing it cool With their minimalist beats, sophisticated lyrics, and stoic mien, the Talking Heads were indisputably one of the most influential and intriguing bands of their time. Rising from the ashes of punk and the smoldering embers of the disco inferno, they effectively straddled the boundaries between critical and commercial success as few other groups did, with music you could deconstruct and dance to at the same time. Culture critic David Bowman tells the fascinating story of how this brain trust of talented musicians turned pop music on its head. From the band’s inception at the Rhode Island School of Design to their first big gig opening for the Ramones at CBGB, from their prominence in the worlds of art and fashion to the clash of egos and ideals that left them angry, jealous, and ready to call it quits, Bowman closely chronicles the rise and fall of a stunningly original and gloriously dysfunctional rock 'n' roll band that stayed together longer than anyone thought possible, and left a legacy that influences artists to this day.

This book examines the parallel histories of modern art and modern music and examines why one is embraced and understood and the other ignored, derided or regarded with bewilderment, as noisy, random nonsense perpetrated by, and listened to by the inexplicably crazed. It draws on interviews and often highly amusing anecdotal evidence in order to find answers to the question: Why do people get Rothko and not Stockhausen?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • David Byrne’s incisive and enthusiastic look at the musical art form, from its very inceptions to the influences that shape it, whether acoustical, economic, social, or technological—now updated with a new chapter on digital curation. “How Music Works is a buoyant hybrid of social history, anthropological survey, autobiography, personal philosophy, and business manual”—The Boston Globe Utilizing his incomparable career and inspired collaborations with Talking Heads, Brian Eno, and many others, David Byrne taps deeply into his lifetime of knowledge to explore the panoptic elements of music, how it shapes the human experience, and reveals the impetus behind how we create, consume, distribute, and enjoy the songs, symphonies, and rhythms that provide the backbeat of life. Byrne’s magnum opus uncovers thrilling realizations about the redemptive liberation that music brings us all.

Poetry. Asian & Asian American Studies. Women's Studies. Art. Music. Winner of the 2019 Washington Prize. Kim explores to devastating effect the complicity between art, intimacy, and violence. Weaving contemporary meditations with an ongoing dialogue between two musicians in 18th century Spain on the nature of friendship and creativity, Kim's brave new collection explores our nature--to live both broken and whole. Says Peg Alford Purcell, Here is charged beauty, the rich and generous consciousness in which nothing is forgiven, everything laid bare. The lyrical and narrative genius of these poems interweaves two voices, one that's contemporary and autobiographical and one in the persona of an eighteenth-century castrato opera singer.

Gathers paintings and collages that interpret songs by Brian Eno and describes the working methods of both artist and composer

"One day I blew my nose and half my brains came out." Los Angeles, 1976. David Bowie is holed up in his Bel-Air mansion, drifting into drug-induced paranoia and confusion. Obsessed with black magic and the Holy Grail, he's built an altar in the living room and keeps his fingernail clippings in the fridge. There are occasional trips out to visit his friend Iggy Pop in a mental institution. His latest album is the cocaine-fuelled Station To Station (Bowie: "I know it was recorded in LA because I read it was"), which welds R&B rhythms to lyrics that mix the occult with a yearning for Europe, after three mad years in the New World. Bowie has long been haunted by the angst-ridden, emotional work of the Die Brucke movement and the Expressionists. Berlin is their spiritual home, and after a chaotic world tour, Bowie adopts this city as his new sanctuary. Immediately he sets to work on Low, his own expressionist mood-piece.

This title provides a group portrait of some of the greatest musicians of the 20th century, including Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith, Grandmaster Flash and Bob Dylan.