More Songs About Buildings And Food
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Album Summary
Now here's an album that changed the game, baby — Talking Heads' second studio effort, 'More Songs About Buildings And Food,' dropped on September 14, 1978, on Sire Records, and the world of music would never quite be the same. Recorded at The Hit Factory in New York City and produced by the visionary Brian Eno alongside the band themselves, this record found David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz, and Jerry Harrison operating at a whole new level of artistic confidence and rhythmic sophistication. Eno's production touch was the missing ingredient — he brought a depth and textural warmth to the proceedings that transformed Talking Heads from a promising post-punk outfit into something genuinely transcendent, a group that could make you think and move your feet at the very same time.
Reception
- The album climbed to #29 on the Billboard 200 and reached an impressive #6 on the UK Albums Chart, a massive leap forward from where their debut had landed them.
- Critics embraced it with open arms, celebrating its fearless fusion of post-punk minimalism, funk grooves, and art-rock ambition as something genuinely new and necessary.
- The cover of Al Green's 'Take Me To The River' became the band's first real commercial breakthrough, cracking the top 40 and introducing Talking Heads to a much wider audience.
Significance
- This album pioneered a sound that nobody had quite heard before — marrying the cool intellectual distance of art-school post-punk with the warm, undeniable pull of funk and polyrhythmic experimentation, and making it all feel completely natural.
- It firmly established Talking Heads as one of the central forces of the New York new wave movement, standing shoulder to shoulder with contemporaries like Blondie and Television as architects of a new musical era.
- 'More Songs About Buildings And Food' proved beyond any doubt that cerebral, conceptually adventurous music didn't have to sacrifice soul or danceability — a lesson that artists and producers have been absorbing ever since.
Samples
- Take Me To The River — one of the band's most widely covered and referenced recordings, the track has accumulated a deep legacy of interpolations and samples across hip-hop and R&B production.
- Found A Job — sampled by various hip-hop and electronic artists drawn to its crisp rhythmic foundation and distinctive groove.
- With Our Love — has appeared in sample-based productions, attracting producers seeking its hypnotic, locked-in rhythmic texture.
Tracklist
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A1 Thank You For Sending Me An Angel 138
2:11
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A2 With Our Love 127
3:30
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A3 The Good Thing 126
3:03
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A4 Warning Sign 128
3:55
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A5 The Girls Want To Be With The Girls 130
2:37
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A6 Found A Job 122
5:00
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B1 Artists Only 131
3:34
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B2 I'm Not In Love 136
4:33
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B3 Stay Hungry 124
2:39
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B4 Take Me To The River 99
5:00
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B5 The Big Country 111
5:30
Artist Details
Talking Heads burst onto the scene out of Providence, Rhode Island, forming in 1975 after frontman David Byrne and rhythm section stalwarts Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz crossed paths at the Rhode Island School of Design, eventually landing in New York City and becoming the darlings of the CBGB new wave and art-punk movement with their jittery, cerebral grooves that married funk and African rhythms to post-punk angst in a way nobody else was doing. Their landmark 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense, directed by Jonathan Demme, is widely considered one of the greatest concert films ever put to celluloid, and albums like Remain in Light proved these cats weren't just making music — they were reshaping what rock and roll could think about and feel like. Talking Heads left a fingerprint on everything from alternative rock to art rock to dance music, and their restless intellectual energy influenced a whole generation of artists who dared to ask more from a song than just a good time.
