Talking Heads - Little Creatures (1985)

Early in their career, Talking Heads seemed to be a manifestation of frontman David Byrne’s physiology: lean, angular, and severe. Journalists loved to point out his resemblance to Psycho’s clean-cut villain Norman Bates, especially when writing about their enduring first hit “Psycho Killer.” It was far too easy an observation, and one Byrne resented.

Having sprouted at Rhode Island School of Design and relocated to New York in the mid-’70s, Talking Heads were wedged between two worlds: They were artsy outliers of the punk community too clean-cut and high-minded to really blend in at CBGB, yet too odd for listeners accustomed to a steady diet of Eagles and Fleetwood Mac. A few early singles like “Psycho Killer” and “Life During Wartime” snuck onto the charts by the end of the ’70s, buried under glossy hits by ABBA, Bee Gees, and Michael Jackson. Listening to their early catalog now, it’s clear their sense of melody didn’t get enough credit. Byrne didn’t have the easy star appeal of Barry Gibb, but by 1985, when Talking Heads released their sixth studio album Little Creatures, they’d become more melodic, more relatable: They’d made a pop album.

“It’s so much fun to be able to relax and just play without feeling you have to be avant-garde all the time,” bassist Tina Weymouth told The New York Times’ Ken Emerson in May 1985, one month before the album’s release. “We spent so many years trying to be original that we don’t know what original is anymore.” Readers wouldn’t completely understand what she meant until July, when Little Creatures reached No. 20 on the Billboard 200. After a decade in which they’d produced five pivotal LPs, each more unexpected than the last, Talking Heads had laid down their most approachable album ever.

Little Creatures is a triumphant pop document that celebrates life’s simple joys, the exact thing Talking Heads once weaponized. By this point, the band had already run the gamut of creative endeavors. In addition to their hugely influential discography, they’d worked extensively with Brian Eno, recorded an expansive live album (1982’s The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads), and collaborated with director Jonathan Demme on the groundbreaking and now-classic concert film Stop Making Sense. Critics keenly traced the arc of their success from RISD art obsessives to downtown punk affiliates to a 10-piece band of Afrobeat enthusiasts. Talking Heads’ love of funk and Afrobeat is alive and well on this album, evident in Weymouth’s walloping basslines and a smattering of hand drums; they also experiment with country western pedal steel (on “Creatures of Love”), bubbling synths (“Walk It Down”), and drumline snare (“Road to Nowhere”). But Little Creatures was about a lot more than a new batch of instruments in the studio.