Unable to resist the Hollywood appeal and bringing the band along with him for a sketchy last ride, David Byrne made waves with his only experience behind the camera. True Stories remains a fine piece of suburban living, compartmentalised and pulled apart by an in-form Byrne who uses a decade of Talking Heads material to visualise their message. This focus on the movie brings the album of the same name, True Stories, crashing down. Credible clunks and robotic whirrs turn Talking Heads on their head. True Stories remains a permanent change of pace for Talking Heads. It brings about a stop in their vision, founded in ‘77 and brought through to Little Creatures. Here it ends and is replaced by suburban and Americana mysteries which Byrne and the band cannot quite mount.
Worst of all for True Stories is how sensible and flat it all sounds. Even with Byrne and his confident approach to free-formed lyrics, this work has little depth to it and falls into the trap of soulful, country-like genre tropes heard slightly on Little Creatures. Explosive gospel additions try and make their claim for space on Puzzlin’ Evidence but instead of a ranged, new wave-like experience it is just Byrne padding the soundtrack to his superior film of the same name. True Stories is the closest Byrne gets to stripping away the influence of other Talking Heads members. Papa Legba would fit onto Rei Momo. Is this not the point, though? True Stories proves Byrne can head out on his own and, backed by nodding musicians and yes men, can provide the world with his unique display of samba grooves bleeding into these new wave thrills.
All of it maintains a classy putdown of Americana standards. The times have changed but the fundamentals of modern living have not – and in turn it should give True Stories a contemporary kick. Wild Wild Life and Radio Head are worth extracting from this, the former for its upbeat simplicity and the latter for its part in forming the name Radiohead. Such fun to be had and little of it reflects Talking Heads as an art-rock entity. But you must extract what remains of your thoughts from this feeling of being short-changed and realise True Stories, like the film of the same name and the Talking Heads project after this, Naked, are Byrne-only projects. Is this bad? Not necessarily, though the floaty People Like Us has an uncomfortable absence to it, the disconnect between lyrics and meaning exposed.
True Stories struggles to mount a charge of Talking Heads highs because the instrumental flurry the band was best known for is relegated in importance. It happens for Naked too and the impact this has is clear. Closing out with City of Dreams shows flickers of those quality moments but there is no escaping the pop-rock feel for this one, which torpedoes any chances of Talking Heads taking to the new wave which defined their best works. Instead, they head to the cities built up in their memories, and as the waning instrumentals, the quiet and soft accommodations of City of Dreams play out, there is a sense of finality to it. A moment of disaster begins bubbling through and the curtains are drawn for good. The lights are on in the madhouse but its residents no longer keep up appearances and slip into a tense yet tiring record.
