David Byrne If you awake one morning to find that you are David Byrne, you should be informed that you’re kind of strange guy. Back when you were in art school you pissed off some of your professors when you staged a performance (for a grade) in which you had your hair and beard shaved to an accompaniment of piano and accordion as a showgirl held cue cards written in Russian. After that you started the Talking Heads, which you first called either the Artistics or Autistics. You’re kind of a clever guy too. The ‘Heads started as a quirky art-punk band but later took a total left turn, embraced African polyrhythm music to dazzling effect. Imagine a skinny, goofy-looking white dude making the craziest funk you’ve heard in your life. That’s you. Only now you look like somebody’s dad. If you awake as David Byrne, you should know that you like to use your lyrics to elevate life’s everyday mundanities to the level of art. You should be aware that just recently you’ve made an art exhibit using Powerpoint, and that your latest album is very, very appealing. Yes, if you find yourself in the body of Byrne, you will obviously find yourself reading Bornbackwards on a regular schedule. After all, you named that enjoyable album Grown Backwards, and that’s no coincidence. After a string of spotty solo albums chasing each new world-music genre, you finally hit the mark. As David Byrne, it would probably help you to know how this album was made, that way you won’t look stupid in interviews: unlike much of your other material that started with a riff or a groove, Grown Backwards began as vocal melodies. The music was added afterwards. Occasionally the results sound like a cheesy Broadway show tune, but frequently they’re relaxed and mature pop numbers that are easily appealing and casually circulate in a listener’s heads. You sound pretty confident and comfortable and that carries over. Grown Backwards is very laidback, it doesn’t rock and it’s not particularly funky, but its very unique listening. The songs mix elements from various genres: some latin percussion, soaring strings, vaudeville rhythms, breezy tropical moods, adult pop music (like some of the slower songs from the Talking Heads’ Little Creatures), hell … even some opera. Yeah, opera. I dunno what you were thinking with that one, guy. You’ll have to ask yourself in the mirror. One’s even with Rufus Wainwright, of all people. They’re the two songs I always skip on the album. But there are some great ones opening the album, so I suppose I could forgive you if you were David Byrne. “Glass, Concrete, Stone” is fantastic, beginning with a distant bass drum and bongos that roll out at the end of the beat. A marimba strikes out a repeated child-like melody that’s echoed by a soft nylon-stringed guitar. The cello adds depth and color to the song as you sing a melancholy but soaring melody about the true definitions of people and their environments. “Skin, that covers me from head to toe / except a couple tiny holes and openings … Glass and concrete and stone / It is just a house, not a home.” As the song reaches its bridge you briefly delve into the avant-garde, making short melodic grunts that mirror the marimba while the cello squeals in the high end, focused on the sound of the horse-hair scraping against the metal strings. It’s weirdly reminiscent of Need New Body and fits in surprisingly well after the relaxed pop of the rest of the song. “Empire” forgoes percussion altogether, the rhythm is only proved by an occasional acoustic guitar. The rest of the song is filled with glowing organ and a towering brass section that builds the song from its spare opening into an epic, trumpeting chorus. As the brass chimes, you sound casual and sincere even as your lyrics reek of sarcasm, “What’s good for business / is good for us all / For as it is in nature / so it is in life: the weak among us perish … the strong alone survive.” Elsewhere, “The Other Side of This Life” and “Glad” play with catchy but slightly cliché ideas borrowed from Broadway. Unlike the opera it’s an enjoyable experiment, the string section is never sappy or maudlin and the melodies are bouncy and poppy, if goofy. But that’d be you. “She Only Sleeps” uses finger snaps for percussion. Hawaiian slide guitars appear on “Astronaut”, giving it weird tropical-space vibe when combined with the lyrics. Occasionally you dip into weird sounds, like the weird metallic pounding found on the bridge of “Tiny Apocalypse”, or the vaguely Pink-Floyd intro to “The Other Side…” that employs kitchen-implements for percussion. And then there’s that opera stuff. If you ever find yourself as David Byrne, you should stop that immediately. Otherwise, your world-music explorations will have paid off on Grown Backwards, all the ethnic flavors melting together seamlessly into a mellow but captivating whole. Since you don’t focus too heavily on any individual type of world music or weird experimentation, it all blends in subtle and very unique ways. I’d advise you to do more albums like this, where part of the fun is identifying the geography of the individual sounds you use. Yes, you’re kind of a weird guy, and if you ever wake up and suddenly find yourself in the body of David Byrne, you should probably go see a psychiatrist immediately because that doesn’t ordinarily happen to normal folks outside of body-swapping movies like “Freaky Friday” or “Vice Versa”. -exadore |
