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Jason Maloney reviews
V o l u m e # 0 7 Week Commencing: 14th March 1988 Online Date: 24th March 2005
A mere six months after the sudden, acrimonious split of The Smiths and the dissolving of the seminal Morrissey/Marr songwriting partnership, frontman Stephen Morrissey returned on his own… with a little help from new collaborator Vinnie Reilly.
The result was a #1 album, and back-to-back Top 10 singles (Suedehead, Everyday Is Like Sunday) – both of which eclipsed the #10 high of The Smiths’ biggest hits Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now and Sheila Take A Bow.
Overall, Viva Hate had rather too many weak links and, despite the majestic brace of singles and the epic Late Night Maudlin Street, wasn’t in the same league as the work of his former band.
Langley Park to Memphis
The third Prefab Sprout opus was rather longer in the making. Three years, to be exact. 1985’s Steve McQueen (titled Two Wheels Good for the US market) had built on the promise shown on their debut album Swoon the year before, and the new record was eagerly awaited in many quarters.
Protest Songs, an album recorded not long after Steve McQueen, had never fully materialised (it was issued posthumously in 1989) and in their absence a host of bands with a similar sound had emerged such as Danny Wilson, Deacon Blue, The Big Dish.
From Langley Park To Memphis was a classic, full of cracking singles (Cars & Girls, their big breakthrough smash The King Of Rock’n’Roll, Hey Manhattan!) and wildly inventive production by Thomas Dolby on several tracks.
CBS plundered the album for no less than 6 singles, although only one made the Top 40, while the album debuted at #5 on the chart dated March 26th and hung around for a respectable 18 weeks.
Talking Heads‘ fourth album for EMI, having left the Warner Brothers offshoot Sire Records following 1983’s Speaking In Tongues, proved to be the last of their career.
As swansongs go, it was a fairly successful one; debuting at an all-time UK career high of #3, Naked proved less of commercial downgrade than True Stories had been after the huge popularity of the Little Creatures album in the mid 1980s.
World music, a genre which frontman David Byrne would spend the next 15 years exploring, came to the fore on 11 tracks built around intricate rhythmic arrangements and stellar studio musicianship rather than the traditional four-piece band dynamic of yore.
Byrne was overwhelmingly calling the shots, and it wasn’t surprising that the days of Talking Heads as a recording entity would be numbered.
Rock of Life
(DVDfever Dom adds: Hey, I liked it! 🙂) Page Content copyright © Jason Maloney, 2005.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.