Later, “Hear Some Stewf” will be devoted to ramblings about music, but because that section is but a mound of dirt at the moment I make this announcement here: Talking Heads finally have a proper box set. The collection, titled Once in a Lifetime, contains remastered selections from their 6 peak-era albums including my favorite tune, the live "Clean Break" (previously unreleased on CD), and a DVD of their videos (many of which were directed by the great designer Tibor Kalman). I already have most of these tracks in their earlier form, but if Stephen Thomas Erlewine is impressed with the set, I’m sure I’ll be. A shame that I don’t have the cash to toss at CDs. Same as it ever was.
Will the DVD be sold separately? The Talking Heads videos are among the best, or at least most ambitious and interesting, works in the history of video. I might not be up to shelling out the dough for the whole box (since I have the non-remastered albums and prefer to listen to the albums as a whole), but I most definately want that DVD.
Posted by: Jeremy J-Dawg | November 22, 2003 at 01:15 PM
Dunno, J-Dawg. Maybe we should buy it together and I'll let you borrow the DVD for a day.
Posted by: Steupf | November 22, 2003 at 01:25 PM
I now have the boxed set and as I told you before, dearest Stewf, Tibor Kalman only directed one Talking heads video, "Nothing But Flowers," with Sandy MacLeod. It is a very good video, using text of the song lyrics and statistics. Other highlights include "And She Was," a brilliant animated piece made in collaboration with Jim Blashfield, most of Byrne's videos, particularly the ahead-of-their-time projection experiments and lip-synch deconstruction in "Burning down the House," and collaborations with noted directors like Jim Jarmush and Wim Wenders.
Jess and I have watched too much VH1 classic, and can quite strongly say that the only two bands that made consistently interesting videos in the '80s were Talking Heads and They Might Be Giants.
The DVD is an expanded version of a pre-Naked VHS collection of the band's videos and amusing (and at times touching) interview sequences shot by David Byrne thrown in between them. The DVD has all that footage plus the three later videos ("Blind" and "(Nothing But) Flowers" from Naked and "Sax and Violins").
From a brief sampling (I've only had the set for a day), I'd say that the box's only weak spot it the absense of an essay on the video-making process--although an audio commentary on the DVD would have been even better. These are an important part of the history of the video, and are pretty much glazed over, although it's definately nice that they included them.
Posted by: Jeremy J-Dawg | December 26, 2003 at 01:05 AM