More Songs About Buildings and Food

More Songs About Buildings and Food
Studio album by Talking Heads
Released	July 14, 1978 (1978-07-14)[1]
Recorded	March–April 1978
Studio	Compass Point Studios in Nassau
Genre	New wave[2] post-punk[3] psychedelic funk[4] avant-pop[5]
Length	41:32
Label	Sire
Producer	Brian Eno Talking Heads
Talking Heads chronology
Talking Heads: 77 (1977)Talking Heads: 771977 More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978) Fear of Music (1979)Fear of Music1979
Audio sample
"Found a Job" file help

More Songs About Buildings and Food is the second studio album by the American rock band Talking Heads, released in July 1978. The album was the first of three Talking Heads LPs produced by collaborator Brian Eno. It saw the group move musically toward a danceable style, crossing singer David Byrne's unusual delivery with new emphasis on the rhythm section (made up of bassist Tina Weymouth and drummer Chris Frantz).

More Songs established the group as a critical success, reaching 29 in the US Billboard Pop Albums chart and 21 in the UK Albums Chart. The album featured the group's first Top 30 single, a cover of Al Green's "Take Me to the River."

Artwork and title

The front cover of the album, conceived by Byrne and executed by artist Jimmy De Sana, is a photomosaic of the band comprising 529 close-up Polaroid photographs.^[6]

The rear cover of the album shows a satellite image (taken by one of the Landsat satellites) of the United States.^{[nb 1]}

Concerning the album's title, bassist Tina Weymouth was quoted in an 1979 interview with Creem magazine:

When we were making this album I remembered this stupid discussion we had about titles for the last album," Tina smirked. "At that time I said, 'What are we gonna call an album that's just about buildings and food?' And Chris said, 'You call it more songs about buildings and food.'^[7]

XTC frontman Andy Partridge claimed in a tweet, however, that he gave the title to Byrne.^[8]

Release

More Songs About Buildings and Food was released on July 21, 1978.^[6] It peaked at number 29 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart. The album's one single, a cover of the Al Green hit "Take Me to the River", peaked at number 26 on the pop singles chart in 1979. The single pushed the album to gold-record status.^[9]

The album was ranked at No. 4 among the top "Albums of the Year" for 1978 by NME, with "Take Me to the River" ranked at No. 16 among the year's top tracks.^[10] In 2003 the album was ranked number 382 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In 2006 it was ranked the 45th best album of the 1970s by Pitchfork Media. It was ranked number 57 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the greatest albums of 1967–1987.

In 2005 it was re-released and remastered by Warner Music Group on their Warner Bros., Sire and Rhino Records labels in DualDisc format, with four bonus tracks on the CD side ("Stay Hungry" (1977 version), alternate versions of "I'm Not in Love" and "The Big Country", and the 'Country Angel' version of "Thank You for Sending Me an Angel"). The DVD-Audio side includes both stereo and 5.1 surround high resolution (96 kHz/24bit) mixes, as well as a Dolby Digital version and videos of the band performing "Found a Job" and "Warning Sign". In Europe, it was released as a CD+DVDA two disc set rather than a single DualDisc. The reissue was produced by Andy Zax with Talking Heads.

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[11]
Chicago Tribune	[12]
Christgau's Record Guide	A[13]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[14]
The Irish Times	[15]
Rolling Stone	[16]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[17]
Spin Alternative Record Guide	9/10[18]
Uncut	[19]

Writing for The Village Voice, critic Robert Christgau said:

Here the Heads become a quintet in an ideal producer-artist collaboration--Eno contributes/interferes just enough. Not only does his synthesized lyricism provide flow and continuity, it also makes the passive, unpretentious technological mysticism he shares with the band real in the aural world. In fact, there is so much beautiful music (and so much funky music) on this album that I'll take no more complaints about David Byrne's voice. Every one of these eleven songs is a positive pleasure, and on every one the tension between Byrne's compulsive flights and the sinuous rock bottom of the music is the focus.^[13]

Reviewing the album for Pitchfork's "Top 100 Albums of the 1970s", Nick Sylvester said:

More Songs About Buildings and Food transformed the Talking Heads from a quirky CBGB spectacle to a quirky near-unanimously regarded "it" band. New producer Brian Eno can take his due credit for the album's success, smartly tightening up the rhythm section's energy for more dance-oriented beats and a more prominent role in general, though without taking the limelight off head Head David Byrne's nervous sputters. Byrne's own songwriting was, as the album titled suggested, in the same quotidian vein as '77, though perhaps Buildings and Food has slightly more vitriol, especially on album closer, "The Big Country", Byrne's indictment of the South. More Songs About Buildings and Food probably could have survived as a cult album by a cult band, but what really opened up the Talking Heads for a national audience was the band's slinky cover of Al Green's famous "Take Me to the River", which put them on the top 30 singles charts for the first time.^[20]

Track listing

All tracks written by David Byrne, except where noted.

Note

• ^[a] - Mixed at Media Sound Recording Studios by Brian Eno and Ed Stasium

Personnel

Harrison and Byrne (right) with Talking Heads in August 1978 at Jay's Longhorn Bar, Minneapolis, Minnesota

	"The Big Country" An audio sample of "The Big Country"
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Talking Heads

• David Byrne – lead vocals, guitars, synthesized percussion
• Chris Frantz – drums, percussion
• Jerry Harrison – piano, organ, synthesizer, guitar, backing vocals
• Tina Weymouth – bass guitar

Additional musicians

• Brian Eno – synthesizers, piano, guitar, percussion, backing vocals
• Tina and the Typing Pool – backing vocals on "The Good Thing"

Production

• Benji Armbrister ^[21] – assistant engineer
• Rhett Davies – engineer, mixing
• Joe Gastwirt – mastering
• Ed Stasium – mixing on "Found a Job"

Charts

Album

Singles

Certifications

Notes

References