The moment Talking Heads killed punk in the UK
Punk was an incredibly necessary genre. It came during a time when people didn’t know what they wanted, they just knew that they were tired of what they had. Politics in the UK was horrid, and societal imbalances were growing. Equally, it was becoming difficult to see music live because the biggest bands were playing to crowds so large that it made any kind of connection or emotion borderline impossible. Something needed to change, and that came in the shape of bands such as the Sex Pistols and Buzzcocks.
There was a general anger about the country, and punk music managed to bottle up that anger and turn it into something tangible. The music was simple, gritty and angry. Meanwhile, the lyrics were a reflection of the disparity in society at the time, as people sang about anarchy, rebellion and how much they couldn’t stand authority.
Why was it so necessary? There are a few reasons. The first is that it acted as a much-needed release during a period when people desperately needed said release. It also showed bands that they didn’t need to follow a specific formula when it came to making music that could go mainstream. What a lot of punk bands were doing didn’t sound like anything that had come before, and that meant that people became more willing to push the boundaries of the kind of music they wanted to make.
This early iteration of punk didn’t remain the most talked-about genre for long, though. Punk remains to this day, granted, but it’s more thought out than the thrashy three-chord structure that bands such as the Sex Pistols were using. This is because it was more of a gateway to other styles as opposed to a definitive sound itself.
After punk had gone mainstream, people were a lot more willing to open themselves up to strange and quirky music. As soon as they did this, they allowed themselves to listen to music that didn’t fit in with the mainstream this much, and this gave bands like Talking Heads a stage to perform on.
When David Byrne and Co were putting together Talking Heads, they used The Velvet Underground as a source of inspiration. They were obsessed with the way that Velvet Underground refused to be boxed into one specific genre. Some of their songs were heavy, bordering on aggressive, while other tracks were much more wholesome and easy to listen to. There was no need to put themselves into a box, and so they decided not to.
The unpredictability of the band was reflected in one of their earliest hits, ‘Psycho Killer’. The song was quite pop-infused, with a catchy chorus and clean-sounding chords; however, it featured dark and strange lyrics, and also had bizarre vocals that danced the line between screaming and trying to call over an exotic animal. That being said, despite these strange elements, people couldn’t get enough, and this song played a big part in showing people what the new breed of music would sound like.
This performance alone played a big part in killing that initial incarnation of punk. Early punk had done its job by opening people’s minds, but now it was time for those open minds to experience something really radical. Talking Heads were just the beginning, but this performance, as iconic as it is, paved the way for a lot of other artists and ushered in a new era for music.
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