Talking Heads 77

Talking Heads threw you off balance, but grabbed your attention with a sound that seemed alternately threatening and goofy. An album full of staggered rhythms and sudden tempo changes, odd guitar tunings and rhythmic, single-note patterns, non-rhyming, non-linear lyrics that come across like odd remarks overheard from a psychiatrist's couch. A voice singing above its normal range, its falsetto leaps and strangled cries resembling a madman trying desperately to sound normal.

Talking Heads threw you off balance but grabbed your attention with a sound that seemed alternately threatening and goofy. The music was undeniably catchy, even at its most ominous, especially on "Psycho Killer", Byrne's supreme statement of demented purpose. This was the first of four consecutive masterpieces for sire. 77 is the work of a truly great American band.