Talking Heads are not reuniting, and thank God for that
Stop Making Sense may well be the best work of art of the 20th century. It’s a perfect display of the Talking Heads at the top of their game. The band achieved many things from this creative pinnacle. But above all, for 90 minutes, they made life a celebration.
In the backwash of this euphoria, there is a wealth of cultural commentary. It all begins with a pair of white espadrilles, the world’s least rock ‘n’ roll footwear, stepping out an understated point on the band’s aversion to gaudy excesses. Thereafter, the democratic construction of the show seems to illuminate the point that joy is a communal enterprise. There are also points on consumerism, identity politics, and Japanese theatre, all unfurling seamlessly as part of a perfectly choreographed party.
Clearly, everything about Stop Making Sense was meticulously considered with a point in mind. From the oversized suit to the gathering setlist, and the words that flash behind them as they perform ‘Making Flippy Floppy’, there’s even a point to the things that prove pointless. With the band, the pivotal ‘point’ in question, the reasoning behind everything, was always the creation of art. Anything else was mere aftermath.
During their original run as a record releasing force, which began in 1977 with 77 and ended in 1988 with Naked, they only sold around 10 to 12 million records, subsequently more than doubling that since calling it quits in 1991. The relative lack of commercial success in their heyday is underpinned by the same factor that has driven their latent uptick: they were only ever interested in creating timeless art.
They proved that ethos still applies in 2024 when they allegedly turned down an $80million offer to reunite. A recent teaser clip posted to their social media had fans wondering if an unthinkable tour was back on the cards, but happily, the cryptic clip just pertained to a new music video for ‘Psycho Killer’ starring Saoirse Ronan. To me, that news came as a great relief.
To reunite would be to abandon the very ethos that made them one of the greatest bands of all time. Stop Making Sense was a celebration of life because it was informed by all the intricacies that underpin it in an artful display of expression. It proved that bliss didn’t have to be ignorant. Sure, the hypothetical reunion shows would be a ‘fun’ party, but as David Byrne would almost certainly agree, any parties advertised as purely ‘fun’ often end up with the Talking Heads fans cowering in a quiet room talking about weather and the wallpaper, while phone-yielding free-basers of fun make a loud splash in the living room.
It’s hard not to imagine any potential Talking Heads reunion feeling tainted by this odd misalignment. Of course, the band would likely have the integrity to ensure that the figurative shows themselves would be full of pertinent meaning, but anything they did would be eroded by the circumstantial salvo of hype, expectancy, bandwagon fans there just to say they were there, and the sickly spectre of ‘reported fees’.
Even another masterpiece presented by the great art-punks of old would be subsumed by the sinister shadow of giving in to the demands of the gallery for the sake of capital gains—something we loved them for always avoiding in the first place.
Thankfully, the Talking Heads have always known this, hence the dismissal of millions and a mantra that they proudly sang some decades ago: “Never for money, always for love”.
