Snippets from Talking Head's history. (Sand In The Vaseline - Talking Heads)

Member Name: RussellC

Product:	Sand In The Vaseline - Talking Heads
Date:	16/08/00 (112 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Distinctive, original sound.

Disadvantages: Redundant if you have their other albums.

Sand in the Vaseline is aptly called a selection of popular favourites, probably because as any fan will tell you it's impossible to pick the best of Talking Heads. The band, under the lead of David Byrne has produced a consistantly good sound that never seemed derivative and continually evolved with each album. Sand in the Vaseline gives a chance to hear that evolution from their earlier, more raw days, through to the cleaner more refined songs from the early nineties.

The album had been around for quite a while, it's a two disc set with 33 songs in all. My original reason for getting this was too get some Talking Heads on CD as at the time I had all their albums on cassette. Having restricted myself to their more recent albums at the time, it was interesting to return to their earlier tracks and to discover the essence of what I enjoyed was present even then. If anything early songs, like "Psycho Killer" and "Warning Signs" are more strongly driven by David Byrne's unusual lyrics and distinctive voice. Most of the early tracks have a strong feeling of irreverance, the band is developing itself and unafraid to experiment. The first CD finishes as we move into a more refined era, with songs like "Burning down the House", maintaining their unusual style (it's about multiple personality disorders), but showing increasing polish.

The second CD opens with a couple of live tracks from the excellent "Stop Making Sense" tour. As is often the case with live performances these come across as looser and more bold than their studio versions. Moving on there's one of their better known songs, "Road to Nowhere", which to be honest I've never considered one of their best, though it gave them their biggest UK chart success. Amusingly the liner notes describe how David Byrne wrote an opening verse for the song after feeling guilty at how few words it contains. A number of tracks from their &
quot;True Stories" album appear, these were music to David Byrne's film of the same name which took a delibrately shallow look at the state of America. So we get the pretty unsubtle dig at consumerism in "Love for Sale" a song apparently built from lines of advertising. The album finishes of with some of their funkier tracks from the album Naked, probably their most distinctive sound. There's also a few tracks produced after that, but never collected into a proper album, such as the enjoyable and calming "Sax and Violins" produced for the Wim Wenders film "Until the End of the World".

This was always going to be a favourite album for me, wit the exception of a couple of the later tracks I'd heard and enjoyed all these songs before. Talking Heads consistanty produced original and inspired music for the whole of their period together, thanks primarily to David Byrne. I'd recomend the album if you've enjoyed any Talking Heads before, believe me they're always good, or perhaps if you enjoy indie music with a softer edge. As selection CDs go, it's an honest collection of a large body of work that's aged exceptionally well.

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