This album was recorded by the Talking Heads in Long Island City, NY in 1979 which led me to wonder how Brian Eno got to Queens -- did he take the 7 train to Queens Borough Plaza and then walk over? After all, the 7 train does appear in at least one Talking Heads video. Regardless, this album has a real live feel to it, like it was recorded in someone's living room and mixed to reproduce the live experience of a bass, guitar, drum and keyboard ensemble. It is the Heads at their most trimmed down production and in tone, texture, production values and subject matter, it reminds me of Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division which was also recorded that year. I know the Heads must have had an awareness of Joy Division since their song "The Overload" on Remain In Light (1980) is frighteningly close to JD's "I Remember Nothing." Besides, everyone on earth knew who Joy Division was by 1980.

At first blush, this album is weird, quirky, mysterious and fragmented. But closer examination reveals a pretty huge sense of humor. The title alone, Fear of Music, is hilarious and is a key to the sensibilities that run throughout the songs. David Byrne paints one portrait after another of phobia, fear of electric guiars, fear of animals, fear of air, fear of Heaven, fear of cities, fear of wartime, fear of paper. Fear of paper?

Fear of music is a very city oriented album. It is not an album of art rock by art school students like their first two albums. It is a garage band that has spaced out on too much surrealism, late-night television, science fiction movies and Dadaist poetry. They even use a Dadaist poem by Hugo Ball as the lyrics for "I Zimbra" which is written in pseudo-African words and chanted to hypnotic effect by the Heads to a point where you almost feel emotion coming from the meaningless words. "Mind" and "Paper" are simple themed songs evoking what is probably a metaphor for Self: "Hold the paper/Up to the Light/Some rays they pass right through!"

The two great classics of the album come back to back: "Life During Wartime" and "Cities." They are epic pre-Remain In Light songs that speak of fear and trembling more potently than any other Heads song either before or after. "Find a city/Find myself a city to live in" is evocative of the Mad Max nomad who doesn't fit in anywhere and probably doesn't even have a name. "Life During Wartime" was covered many times with a slightly different sound and in the great concert movie "Stop Making Sense" it even provides a backdrop to a mid-concert aeorbics dance session, but here it is pure and uncut, no doubt recorded moments after Byrne taught the tune to the band, and it shines as a dark, disaffected piece of science fiction poetry. "Burned all my notebooks/What good are notebooks/They won't help me survive/My chest is aching/burns like a furnace/The burning keeps me alive!"

"Memories Can't Wait" is a psychedelic masterpiece. "Air" makes breathing itself seem fearful. "Animals" is disturbing and may be a top of the hat to Pink Floyd that had released their "Animals" album the year before. "Heaven" is a beautiful tune but it even makes Heaven seem sinister. "Drugs" which ends the album is scary to listen to. Byrne jogged around the city block several times before recording his vocals, and you can hear the edge in his voice and the lack of breath as he struggles to get the words out. You can only hope he's acting.

The album made Rolling Stones Top 100 Albums of the last 20 years issue and deserves it. It is a dark testament to a bunch of paranoid musicians huddled in a Queens loft right before they became really, really famous. It is an album that should be studied by historians.

all talking heads albums are great [with the exception of 'true stories', but thats more of a soundtrack than an album proper] but this is the best. it combines the minimalism and edginess of the first two albums with the african instrumentation and polyrhythms of 'remain in light'. like my bloody valentine or sigur ros, talking heads distilled their guitar sound into its base elements on this album; a unique, scratchy, edgy noise. brian eno's contribution is evident in the strange sounds and effects which run through this album. far from sounding dated and gimmicky, however, the production still sounds fresh and exciting. tina weymouth's bass makes the faster songs pure dance music [the subsonic bass drops on 'i zimbra' sounds have to be heard to be believed; it sounds like whales' mating calls!]. the slower songs such as and 'air' 'mind', and the ballad 'heaven' are beautiful, and never sound trite or cliched.

lyrically, david byrne is on top paranoid form; his chracters see the banal aspects of everyday life; paper, guitars, pets, even air, as either crushingly important or terribly threatening. there is also a strong feeling of claustrophobia permeating the album, such as the endless descriptions of disorientation is 'life during wartime' and the cry of 'i'm stuck here in this seat' in 'memories can't wait'.

this album is talking heads at the height of their creativity; fulfilling the promise of their early material but avoiding the later works' occasional lack of focus.

At the close of the 70's David Byrne and his band, with a little help from friend Brian Eno, guided us on an unforgettable musical odyssey. With openness, clarity and a sense of introverted post-adolescence, they provided education into the lack of soul in 70s rock. Fear of Music articulated the angst we experienced giving ourselves over to the nihilistic hedonism of the disco apocalypse. As its two predecessors had done, Fear Of Music made informed surgical incisions into the bloated cancer of corporate rock. 1n 1979, Fear of Music was a lifesaver, a touchstone, providing escape and a refuge from the meaninglessness while at the same time holding a tongue-in-cheek mirror up to it -- and to ourselves. Paranoiac obsessions about Paper, Air and Electric Guitars were strangely satisfying, while Life During Wartime became a contradictory anthem for those who were and weren't thinking. Mind remains a personal all time favorite. Phish's fabulous remake of Cities was stunning enough to force a rediscovery of the original. Although the album hasn't aged well, being rooted in the dying gasps of the 70s, every song is an absolute classic. Memories Can't Wait, so if you have it, give it another spin. If not, don't be afraid to discover an amazing artifact of the 70s.

"I Zimbra" is a wild African rhythmic wonder complete with nonsense lyric chant which immediately announces a departure from the previous two Talking Heads discs. The new direction is marked by that familiar frantic energy but now it doesn't sound so friendly. The first two were like great music for art school parties but FEAR OF MUSIC's atmospheres are menaced by paranoia, and FEAR. As if the very "Air" we breathe is not safe, and perhaps it isn't. But "Air" is a great song, great heavenly music and background voices and guitar. And so is "Heaven" even if it is "is a place where nothing ever happens". "Drugs" is perhaps the least Talking Heads sounding song. Certainly the most Eno crafted. An Eno created environment with great slowed down Heads rhythm section, and Byrne tentatively exploring his new surroundings which are both ethereal and primordial(Eno reptile and insect noises in background). Perhaps Eno cages the band a bit too much in his ideas. I like this disc but always look forward to once again hearing the more accessible Heads albums after this one.

This disc came out in '79, the same year as Bowie's Lodger. Both were produced by Eno & both reveal Eno's fascination with Africa and sound collage which would appear later in more advanced form on the Byrne/Eno My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.
Just like some people didn't like what Eno did with Bowie's pop, so there are plenty of people that feel he shouldn't have messed with Talking Heads sound.

If you play Remain in Light, "Once in a Lifetime" for instance, after this disc it will sound very liberating. Much more alive and in touch with both Heads own roots and the world at large. And even more alive is the very live disc, THE NAME OF THIS BAND IS TALKING HEADS. There "I Zimbra" and "Drugs"(funked up with great guitar part) as well as "Memories Can't Wait" and "Life During Wartime" removed from the studio come alive and find their true form along with all the other great Headtunes of the first four discs.

I never had a very large interest, other than curiosity, about the Talking Heads. However, I love modern experimental music(They Might Be Giants, Laurie Anderson, Captain Beefheart) and after seeing the soundtrack for 'Stop Making Sense' in the library and decided to check it out. Apart from 'Psycho Killer' and 'Once in a Lifetime', the album left be a tad disapointed. While at the library again, I found the album 'Fear of Music'. I found it to be one of the finest cd's I have ever heard, matched only by TMBG's 'Flood', and Philip Glass' 'Dancepieces'. From the pulsating joy of I Zimbra(actually a dada poem set to music) to the fractured backbeat of 'Drugs', the album captured me. The best song on here hands down is 'Mind', a ghostly and sad song seemingly about a doomed relationship. The second is 'Animals', a terrific exercise in paranoia. The final minute of that song one of the most interesting pieces of music I have ever heard. Those two songs are well worth the whole album.