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123-707: Remain in Light is the fourth studio album by the American rock band Talking Heads , released on October 8, 1980, by Sire Records . The band's third and final album to be produced by Brian Eno , Remain in Light was recorded at Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas and Sigma Sound Studios in New York in July and August 1980. After the release of Fear of Music in 1979, Talking Heads and Eno sought to dispel notions of

246-513: A "disarming image, which suggests both splitting and obliteration of identity", and which introduces the listener to the album's recurring theme of "identity disturbance"; he has said, "The image is in bleak contrast to the title with the obscured images of the band members unable to 'remain in light'." Talking Heads and Eno originally agreed to credit all songs in alphabetical order to "David Byrne, Brian Eno, Chris Frantz, Jerry Harrison and Tina Weymouth" after failing to devise an accurate formula for

369-420: A "live" sound. Recordings, including live, may contain editing, sound effects, voice adjustments, etc. With modern recording technology , artists can be recorded in separate rooms or at separate times while listening to the other parts using headphones ; with each part recorded as a separate track . Album covers and liner notes are used, and sometimes additional information is provided, such as analysis of

492-404: A "striking free-associative feel", according to psychoanalyst Michael A. Brog, in that there is no extended thought process that can be followed in its stream-of-consciousness lyrics. Gans instructed Byrne to be freer with his lyrical content, advising him that "rational thinking has its limits". Byrne included a bibliography with the album press kit along with a statement that explained how

615-413: A Lifetime ". A Lexicon 224 digital reverberation unit, one of the first of its kind, was obtained by engineer Dave Jerden and used on the album. Like Davies, Jerden was unhappy with the fast pace at which Eno wanted to record, but he did not complain. The tracks made Byrne rethink his vocal style and he tried singing to the instrumental songs, but sounded "stilted". Few vocal sections were recorded in

738-575: A backing vocalist on Harrison's advice. Drummer Chris Frantz and bassist Tina Weymouth , a married couple, discussed leaving Talking Heads after Weymouth suggested that Byrne was too controlling. Frantz did not want to leave, and the two took a long vacation in the Caribbean to ponder the state of the band and their marriage. They became involved in Haitian Vodou religious ceremonies, practiced native percussion instruments, and socialised with

861-458: A brown heavy paper sleeve with a large hole in the center so the record's label could be seen. The fragile records were stored on their sides. By the mid-1920s, photo album publishers sold collections of empty sleeves of heavier paper in bound volumes with stiff covers slightly larger than the 10" popular records. (Classical records measured 12".) On the paper cover in small type were the words "Record Album". Now records could be stored vertically with

984-733: A cohesive whole. The album reached number 19 on the US Billboard 200 album chart and number 21 on the UK Albums Chart , and produced the singles " Once in a Lifetime " and " Houses in Motion ". It has been featured in several publications' lists of the best albums of the 1980s and of all time, and is often considered Talking Heads' magnum opus . In 2017, the Library of Congress deemed the album "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in

1107-412: A collection of pieces or songs on a single record was called an "album"; the word was extended to other recording media such as compact disc, MiniDisc , compact audio cassette, 8-track tape and digital albums as they were introduced. An album (Latin albus , white), in ancient Rome, was a board chalked or painted white, on which decrees, edicts, and other public notices were inscribed in black. It

1230-403: A compilation of songs created by any average listener of music. The songs on a mixtape generally relate to one another in some way, whether it be a conceptual theme or an overall sound. After the introduction of Compact discs, the term "Mixtape" began to apply to any personal compilation of songs on any given format. The sales of Compact Cassettes eventually began to decline in the 1990s, after

1353-424: A current or former member of a musical group which is released under that artist's name only, even though some or all other band members may be involved. The solo album appeared as early as the late 1940s. A 1947 Billboard magazine article heralded " Margaret Whiting huddling with Capitol execs over her first solo album on which she will be backed by Frank De Vol ". There is no formal definition setting forth

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1476-561: A customer buys a whole album rather than just one or two songs from the artist. The song is not necessarily free nor is it available as a stand-alone download, adding also to the incentive to buy the complete album. In contrast to hidden tracks , bonus tracks are included on track listings and usually do not have a gap of silence between other album tracks. Bonus tracks on CD or vinyl albums are common in Japan for releases by European and North American artists; since importing international copies of

1599-461: A few hours to several years. This process usually requires several takes with different parts recorded separately, and then brought or " mixed " together. Recordings that are done in one take without overdubbing are termed "live", even when done in a studio. Studios are built to absorb sound, eliminating reverberation , to assist in mixing different takes; other locations, such as concert venues and some "live rooms", have reverberation, which creates

1722-415: A foundation. Eno arrived in the Bahamas three weeks after Byrne. While reluctant to work with the band again after collaborating on their previous two albums, he changed his mind after hearing the instrumental demo tapes. The band and Eno experimented with the communal African way of making music, in which individual parts mesh as polyrhythms . Nigerian musician Fela Kuti 's 1973 album Afrodisiac became

1845-407: A medium such as compact disc (CD), vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track or cassette ), or digital . Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records (78s) collected in a bound book resembling a photo album ; this format evolved after 1948 into single vinyl long-playing (LP) records played at 33 + 1 ⁄ 3   rpm . The album

1968-755: A return trip with elegant, alien post-punk in tow." Remain in Light was named the best album of 1980 by Sounds , ahead of the Skids' The Absolute Game , and by Melody Maker , while The New York Times included it in its unnumbered shortlist of the 10 best records issued that year. It figured highly in other end-of-year best album lists, notably at number two, behind The Clash 's London Calling , by Christgau, and at number six by NME . It featured at number three—behind London Calling and Bruce Springsteen 's The River —in The Village Voice ' s 1980 Pazz & Jop critics' poll, which aggregates

2091-667: A scattered, stream-of-consciousness lyrical style inspired by early rap and academic literature on Africa. The album artwork was conceived by the bassist, Tina Weymouth , and the drummer, Chris Frantz , with the help of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 's computers and design company, M&Co . The band hired additional members for a promotional tour, after which they went on a year-long hiatus to pursue side projects. Remain in Light attained widespread acclaim from critics for its sonic experimentation, rhythmic innovations, and merging of disparate genres into

2214-533: A showcase of tracks to an 8,000-person full house at the Wollman Rink , as well as approximately another 10,000 seated on the grass outside the walls, in Central Park . Only these two performances were initially planned, but Sire Records decided to support the nine-member band on an extended tour. After the promotional tour, the band went on hiatus for several years, leaving the individual members to pursue

2337-410: A single artist, genre or period, a single artist covering the songs of various artists or a single artist, genre or period, or any variation of an album of cover songs which is marketed as a "tribute". Jam session One source for the phrase "jam session" came about in the 1920s when white and black musicians would congregate after their regular paying gigs to play the jazz they could not play in

2460-522: A single case, or a triple album containing three LPs or compact discs. Recording artists who have an extensive back catalogue may re-release several CDs in one single box with a unified design, often containing one or more albums (in this scenario, these releases can sometimes be referred to as a "two (or three)-fer"), or a compilation of previously unreleased recordings. These are known as box sets . Some musical artists have also released more than three compact discs or LP records of new recordings at once, in

2583-433: A solo album for several reasons. A solo performer working with other members will typically have full creative control of the band, be able to hire and fire accompanists, and get the majority of the proceeds. The performer may be able to produce songs that differ widely from the sound of the band with which the performer has been associated, or that the group as a whole chose not to include in its own albums. Graham Nash of

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2706-414: A studio. However, the common understanding of a "live album" is one that was recorded at a concert with a public audience, even when the recording is overdubbed or multi-tracked. Concert or stage performances are recorded using remote recording techniques. Albums may be recorded at a single concert , or combine recordings made at multiple concerts. They may include applause, laughter and other noise from

2829-406: A theme such as the "greatest hits" from one artist, B-sides and rarities by one artist, or selections from a record label , a musical genre , a certain time period, or a regional music scene. Promotional sampler albums are compilations. A tribute or cover album is a compilation of cover versions of songs or instrumental compositions. Its concept may involve various artists covering the songs of

2952-493: A tradition of jamming. Bluegrass jams happen in the parking lots and campgrounds of bluegrass festivals , in music stores, bars and restaurants and on stages. Bluegrass jams tend to be segregated by the skill level of the players. Slow jams for beginners provide an entry point. Open bluegrass jams are open to all comers, but the players in an open jam will expect a certain level of proficiency from participants. The abilities to hear chord progressions and keep time are essential, and

3075-516: A trend of shifting sales in the music industry , some observers feel that the early 21st century experienced the death of the album . An album may contain any number of tracks. In the United States, The Recording Academy 's rules for Grammy Awards state that an album must comprise a minimum total playing time of 15 minutes with at least five distinct tracks or a minimum total playing time of 30 minutes with no minimum track requirement. In

3198-438: A variety of side projects. Remain in Light was released worldwide on October 8, 1980, and received its world premiere, airing in its entirety, on October 10 on WDFM . According to writer David Sheppard, "it was received as a great cultural event as much as a vivid art-pop record." Unusually, the album's press release included a bibliography submitted by Byrne and Eno citing books by Chernoff and others to provide context for how

3321-430: A way of promoting the album. Albums have been issued that are compilations of older tracks not originally released together, such as singles not originally found on albums, b-sides of singles, or unfinished " demo " recordings. Double albums during the seventies were sometimes sequenced for record changers . In the case of a two-record set, for example, sides 1 and 4 would be stamped on one record, and sides 2 and 3 on

3444-580: Is any vocal content. A track that has the same name as the album is called the title track. A bonus track (also known as a bonus cut or bonus) is a piece of music which has been included as an extra. This may be done as a marketing promotion, or for other reasons. It is not uncommon to include singles, B-sides , live recordings , and demo recordings as bonus tracks on re-issues of old albums, where those tracks were not originally included. Online music stores allow buyers to create their own albums by selecting songs themselves; bonus tracks may be included if

3567-430: Is composed by Talking Heads (Byrne, Chris Frantz , Jerry Harrison , and Tina Weymouth ) and Eno. Those involved in the making of Remain in Light were: Talking Heads Additional musicians Production Shipments figures based on certification alone. Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone. Studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music ) issued on

3690-555: Is not necessarily just in MP3 file format, in which higher quality formats such as FLAC and WAV can be used on storage media that MP3 albums reside on, such as CD-R-ROMs , hard drives , flash memory (e.g. thumbdrives , MP3 players , SD cards ), etc. The contents of the album are usually recorded in a studio or live in concert, though may be recorded in other locations, such as at home (as with JJ Cale's Okie , Beck's Odelay , David Gray's White Ladder , and others), in

3813-402: Is recorded on both the "A" and "B" side of the tape, with cassette being "turned" to play the other side of the album. Compact Cassettes were also a popular way for musicians to record " Demos " or "Demo Tapes" of their music to distribute to various record labels, in the hopes of acquiring a recording contract . Compact cassettes also saw the creation of mixtapes , which are tapes containing

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3936-556: The Daily Collegian wrote that the album deserved the tag "classic" like each of the band's three previous full-length releases, while John Rockwell , writing in The New York Times , suggested that it confirmed Talking Heads' position as "America's most venturesome rock band". Sandy Robertson of Sounds praised the record's innovation, while Billboard wrote, "Just about every LP Talking Heads has released in

4059-625: The Allman Brothers Band would feature live improvised performances that could last 10 to 20 minutes or longer. In this context, jams are not casual congregations, but rather improvised portions of rehearsed public set lists. The Grateful Dead are often credited as being the first jam band, dating back as early as 1965 providing freeform improvisation at the Acid Tests put on by the Merry Pranksters . Other bands in

4182-526: The MIT Media Lab ). Using Melody Attack as inspiration, the couple created a collage of red warplanes flying in formation over the Himalayas . The planes are an artistic depiction of Grumman Avenger planes in honor of Weymouth's father, Ralph Weymouth , who was a US Navy Admiral . The idea for the back cover included simple portraits of the band members. Weymouth attended MIT regularly during

4305-736: The National Recording Registry . In January 1980, the members of Talking Heads returned to New York City after touring in support of their 1979 album Fear of Music , and took time off to pursue personal interests. Singer David Byrne worked with Brian Eno , the record's producer, on the album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts . Keyboardist Jerry Harrison produced an album for soul singer Nona Hendryx at Sigma Sound Studios ' secondary facility in New York City; Talking Heads would later record at Sigma and employ Hendryx as

4428-520: The iPod , US album sales dropped 54.6% from 2001 to 2009. The CD is a digital data storage device which permits digital recording technology to be used to record and play-back the recorded music. Most recently, the MP3 audio format has matured, revolutionizing the concept of digital storage. Early MP3 albums were essentially CD-rips created by early CD- ripping software, and sometimes real-time rips from cassettes and vinyl. The so-called "MP3 album"

4551-497: The reggae rhythm section of Sly and Robbie . Frantz and Weymouth ended their holiday by purchasing an apartment above Compass Point Studios in Nassau , Bahamas , where Talking Heads and Eno had recorded More Songs About Buildings and Food in 1978. Byrne joined the duo and Harrison there in early 1980. The band members realized that songwriting had thus far been largely Byrne's responsibility, and that they had become tired of

4674-435: The working title Melody Attack throughout the studio process after watching a Japanese game show of the same name. According to Harrison, the band's ambition was to blend rock and African genres rather than simply imitate African music . Eno's production techniques and personal approach were key to the record's conception. The process was geared to promote the expression of instinct and spontaneity without overtly focusing on

4797-440: The " 500 Greatest Albums of All Time " that year. Radiohead credited Remain in Light as a major influence on their 2000 album Kid A . The Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood had assumed Remain in Light was composed of loops , but learnt from Harrison that Talking Heads had instead recorded themselves playing the parts repetitively. Greenwood said: "And that's why it's not exhausting to listen to because you're not hearing

4920-466: The " Paul Whiteman " style bands they played in. When Bing Crosby attended these sessions, the musicians would say he was "jammin' the beat," since he would clap on the one and the three. Thus these sessions became known as "jam sessions." Mezz Mezzrow also gives this more detailed and self-referential description, based on his experience at the jazz speakeasy known as the Three Deuces: I think

5043-443: The "A"s in "TALKING HEADS". Weymouth and Frantz decided to use the joint credit acronym C/T for the artwork, while Bender and Fisher used initials and code names because the project was not an official MIT venture. The design credits read "HCL, JPT, DDD, WALTER GP, PAUL, C/T". The final mass-produced version of Remain in Light had one of the first computer-designed record jackets. Psychoanalyst Michael A. Brog has called its front cover

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5166-524: The 1970s. Appraising the concept in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Robert Christgau said most "are profit-taking recaps marred by sound and format inappropriate to phonographic reproduction (you can't put sights, smells, or fellowship on audio tape). But for Joe Cocker and Bette Midler and Bob-Dylan -in-the-arena, the form makes a compelling kind of sense." Among

5289-506: The 1995 Spin Alternative Record Guide , Jeff Salamon praised Eno for reining in any excessive appropriations of African music. In 2004, Slant Magazine ' s Barry Walsh labeled its results "simply magical" after the band turned rock music into a more global entity in terms of its musical and lyrical scope. In a 2008 review, Sean Fennessey of Vibe concluded, "Talking Heads took African polyrhythms to NYC and made

5412-443: The 25-minute mark. The album Dopesmoker by Sleep contains only a single track, but the composition is over 63 minutes long. There are no formal rules against artists such as Pinhead Gunpowder referring to their own releases under thirty minutes as "albums". If an album becomes too long to fit onto a single vinyl record or CD, it may be released as a double album where two vinyl LPs or compact discs are packaged together in

5535-508: The African theme with the line "The world moves on a woman's hips", which Byrne used after reading Robert Farris Thompson 's book African Art in Motion . He also studied straight speech, from Watergate scandal co-conspirator John Dean 's testimony to the stories of African American former slaves. Like the other tracks, album opener " Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On) " borrows from "preaching, shouting and ranting". The expression "And

5658-485: The Bahamas, and Frantz and Weymouth often did not show up at the studio. Doubts began to surface about whether the album would be completed, which were assuaged only after the recruitment of guitarist Adrian Belew at the request of Byrne, Harrison, and Eno. Belew was advised to add guitar solos to the Compass Point tracks, making use of numerous effects units and a Roland guitar synthesizer . Belew performed on

5781-403: The Bahamas. The lyrics were written when the band returned to the U.S., in New York City and California. Harrison booked Talking Heads into Sigma Sound, which focused primarily on R&B , after convincing the owners that the band's work could bring them a new clientele. In New York City, Byrne struggled with writer's block , Harrison and Eno spent their time tweaking the compositions recorded in

5904-516: The Electric Mistress and "[ bending ] the sound up and down while working a delay and the volume control on my guitar". Closing track "The Overload" features "tribal-cum- industrial " beats created primarily by Harrison and Byrne alongside Belew's "growling guitar atmospherics". Weymouth and Frantz conceived the cover art with the help of Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher Walter Bender and his ArcMac team (the precursor to

6027-519: The Heat Goes On", used in the title and repeated in the chorus, is based on a New York Post headline Eno read in the summer of 1980, while Byrne rewrote the song title "Don't Worry About the Government" from Talking Heads' debut album, Talking Heads: 77 , into the lyric "Look at the hands of a government man". Although the unorthodox guitar solo has often been credited to Adrian Belew, it

6150-496: The Hollies described his experience in developing a solo album as follows: "The thing that I go through that results in a solo album is an interesting process of collecting songs that can't be done, for whatever reason, by a lot of people". A solo album may also represent the departure of the performer from the group. A compilation album is a collection of material from various recording projects or various artists, assembled with

6273-584: The LP sleeve. Weymouth, who was skeptical of hiring a designing firm, vetoed Kalman's ideas and held firm on the MIT images. The designing process made the band members realize that the title Melody Attack was "too flippant" for the music, and they adopted Remain in Light instead. Byrne has said, "Besides not being all that melodic, the music had something to say that at the time seemed new, transcendent, and maybe even revolutionary, at least for funk rock songs." The image of

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6396-527: The United Kingdom, the criteria for the UK Albums Chart is that a recording counts as an "album" if it either has more than four tracks or lasts more than 25 minutes. Sometimes shorter albums are referred to as mini-albums or EPs . Albums such as Tubular Bells , Amarok , and Hergest Ridge by Mike Oldfield , and Yes's Close to the Edge , include fewer than four tracks, but still surpass

6519-493: The ability to play improvised leads that contain at least a suggestion of the melody is desirable. Jams that require advanced musical proficiency are generally private events, by invitation only. Members of the Soulquarians , an alternative-minded black music collective active from the late 1990s to the early 2000s, held jam sessions while recording their respective albums at Electric Lady Studios . This began in 1997 when

6642-413: The album can be cheaper than buying a domestically released version, Japanese releases often feature bonus tracks to incentivize domestic purchase. Commercial sheet music is published in conjunction with the release of a new album (studio, compilation, soundtrack, etc.). A matching folio songbook is a compilation of the music notation of all the songs included in that particular album. It typically has

6765-456: The album was inspired by African mythologies and rhythms. The release stressed that the major inspiration for the lyrics was John Miller Chernoff's African Rhythm and African Sensibility , which examined the musical enhancement of life in rural African communities. Chernoff travelled to Ghana in 1970 to study native percussion and wrote about how Africans have complicated conversations through drum patterns. One song, "The Great Curve", exemplifies

6888-586: The album was mixed by Eno, engineer John Potoker, and Harrison in New York City, while the other half was mixed by Byrne and Jerden at Eldorado Studios in Los Angeles. Remain in Light has been variously described as new wave , post-punk , worldbeat , dance-rock , art pop , art rock , avant-pop , Afrobeat , and psychedelic funk . Critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine called the album a "dense amalgam of African percussion, funk bass and keyboards, pop songs, and electronics." The album contains eight songs with

7011-529: The album's 40th anniversary, in which they played all of the album and several more Talking Heads songs. In 2023, they expanded the project to a full North American tour, and included material from Belew's period in the Talking Heads-influenced 1980s incarnation of King Crimson . All lyrics are written by David Byrne , except "Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)" and "Crosseyed and Painless", written by David Byrne and Brian Eno ; all music

7134-526: The album's artwork on its cover and, in addition to sheet music, it includes photos of the artist. Most pop and rock releases come in standard Piano/Vocal/Guitar notation format (and occasionally Easy Piano / E-Z Play Today). Rock-oriented releases may also come in Guitar Recorded Versions edition, which are note-for-note transcriptions written directly from artist recordings. Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one-half of

7257-486: The album's final mix as a "spiritual" piece of work, "joyous and ecstatic and yet it's serious"; he has pointed out that, in the end, there was "less Africanism in Remain in Light than we implied ... but the African ideas were far more important to get across than specific rhythms". According to Eno, the record uniquely blends funk with punk rock and new wave. None of the compositions include chord changes, relying instead on

7380-511: The album. If a pop or rock album contained tracks released separately as commercial singles , they were conventionally placed in particular positions on the album. During the sixties, particularly in the UK, singles were generally released separately from albums. Today, many commercial albums of music tracks feature one or more singles, which are released separately to radio, TV or the Internet as

7503-479: The amount of participation a band member can solicit from other members of their band, and still have the album referred to as a solo album. One reviewer wrote that Ringo Starr 's third venture, Ringo , "[t]echnically... wasn't a solo album because all four Beatles appeared on it". Three of the four members of the Beatles released solo albums while the group was officially still together. A performer may record

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7626-510: The audience, comments by the performers between pieces, improvisation, and so on. They may use multitrack recording direct from the stage sound system (rather than microphones placed among the audience), and can employ additional manipulation and effects during post-production to enhance the quality of the recording. Notable early live albums include the double album of Benny Goodman , The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert , released in 1950. Live double albums later became popular during

7749-550: The band and Eno's template for the album. According to Weymouth, the emergence of hip-hop made the band realize that the musical landscape was changing. Before the studio sessions began, the band's friend David Gans told them that "the things one doesn't intend are the seeds for a more interesting future", encouraging them to experiment, improvise and make use of "mistakes". Recording sessions started at Compass Point Studios in July 1980. The album's creation required additional musicians, particularly percussionists. Talking Heads used

7872-432: The band as a mere vehicle for frontman and songwriter David Byrne . Drawing influence from Nigerian Afrobeat musician Fela Kuti , they blended African polyrhythms and funk with electronics, recording instrumental tracks as a series of looping grooves. Session musicians included the guitarist Adrian Belew , the singer Nona Hendryx , and the trumpeter Jon Hassell . Byrne struggled with writer's block , but adopted

7995-407: The band had met with Jamaican reggae producer Lee "Scratch" Perry in New York and arranged to record with him at Compass Point, but he did not show up to the sessions. After a few sessions at Compass Point, engineer Rhett Davies left following an argument with Eno over the fast pace of recording, and Steven Stanley stepped in to replace him. Frantz credited Stanley with helping to create " Once in

8118-406: The best parts, and learning to play them repetitively. The basic tracks focused wholly on rhythms and were all performed in a minimalist method using only one chord. Each section was recorded as a long loop to enable the creation of compositions through the positioning or merging of loops in different ways. Byrne likened the process to modern sampling : "We were human samplers." According to Frantz,

8241-406: The best selling live albums are Eric Clapton 's Unplugged (1992), selling over 26 million copies, Garth Brooks ' Double Live (1998), over 21 million copies, and Peter Frampton 's Frampton Comes Alive! (1976), over 11 million copies. In Rolling Stone ' s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time , 18 albums were live albums. A solo album , in popular music , is an album recorded by

8364-446: The cassette tape throughout the 1970s and early 1980s; the popularity of the cassette reached its peak during the late 1980s before sharply declining during the 1990s. The cassette had largely disappeared by the first decade of the 2000s. Most albums are recorded in a studio , although they may also be recorded in a concert venue , at home, in the field, or a mix of places. The time frame for completely recording an album varies between

8487-542: The collective's associated musicians, including rapper Mos Def 's Black on Both Sides (1999), singer Res 's How I Do (2001), and rapper Talib Kweli 's Quality (2002). Bilal held improvisatory jam sessions while recording his second album, Love for Sale , at Electric Lady, although its experimental direction alienated his label from releasing it, and a subsequent leak led to its indefinite shelving. Common's similarly experimental Electric Circus sold disappointingly, which discouraged MCA Records , Common and

8610-500: The cover art as well, Weymouth considered superimposing Eno's face on top of all four portraits to insinuate his egotism, but decided against it. The rest of the artwork and the liner notes were crafted by graphic designer Tibor Kalman and his company M&Co. Kalman was a fervent critic of formalism and professional design in art and advertisements. He offered his services for free to create publicity, and discussed using unconventional materials such as sandpaper and velour for

8733-559: The credits dispute". Brian Eno advised Talking Heads that the music on Remain in Light was too dense for a quartet to perform live. The band expanded to nine musicians for the tours in support of the album, with Harrison recruiting Belew, Parliament-Funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Worrell , bassist Busta "Cherry" Jones , Ashford & Simpson percussionist Steven Scales, and backing vocalist Dolette MacDonald. The larger group performed soundchecks in Frantz's and Weymouth's loft by following

8856-598: The development of salsa , especially the salsa dura style. As the instrumental proficiency of rock musicians improved in the 1960s and early 1970s, onstage jamming—free improvisation—also became a regular feature of rock music; bands such as Pink Floyd , Cream , The Rolling Stones , the Jimi Hendrix Experience , Deep Purple , The Who , the Grateful Dead , AC/DC , Led Zeppelin , Santana , King Crimson , Lynyrd Skynyrd , Steely Dan , and

8979-442: The emergence of improvised jam sessions during the filin movement of the 1940s, where boleros , sones and other song types were performed in an extended form called descarga . During the 1950s these descargas became the basis of a new genre of improvised jams based on the son montuno with notable jazz influences pioneered by the likes of Julio Gutiérrez and Cachao . During the 1960s, descargas played an important role in

9102-624: The field – as with early blues recordings, in prison, or with a mobile recording unit such as the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio . Most albums are studio albums —that is, they are recorded in a recording studio with equipment meant to give those overseeing the recording as much control as possible over the sound of the album. They minimize external noises and reverberations and have highly sensitive microphones and sound mixing equipment. Band members may record their parts in separate rooms or at separate times, listening to

9225-404: The first contributions that he made during his day in the studio. Belew performed the solo with the aid of four effects: an Electro-Harmonix Big Muff distortion unit, an Alembic Strat-o-Blaster preamp circuit, an equalizer , and an Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress flanger . The second side features more introspective songs. "Once in a Lifetime" pays homage to early rap techniques and

9348-500: The form of a prototype. Compact Cassettes became especially popular during the 1980s after the advent of the Sony Walkman , which allowed the person to control what they listened to. The Walkman was convenient because of its size, the device could fit in most pockets and often came equipped with a clip for belts or pants. The compact cassette used double-sided magnetic tape to distribute music for commercial sale. The music

9471-480: The form of boxed sets, although in that case the work is still usually considered to be an album. Material (music or sounds) is stored on an album in sections termed tracks. A music track (often simply referred to as a track) is an individual song or instrumental recording. The term is particularly associated with popular music where separate tracks are known as album tracks; the term is also used for other formats such as EPs and singles . When vinyl records were

9594-412: The highest of four Talking Heads releases on the list. In 2006, Q magazine placed Remain in Light at number 27 in its list of the "40 Best Albums of the 80s". In 2012, Slant listed the album sixth on its list of the "Best Albums of the 1980s". In 2020, Rolling Stone included Remain in Light in its "80 Greatest Albums of 1980" list; the publication also ranked it number 39 on its updated list of

9717-428: The improvisation really collective… Down in that basement concert hall, somebody was always yelling over to me, 'Hey Jelly, what you gonna do?'—they gave me that nickname, or sometimes called me Roll, because I always wanted to play Clarence Williams ' '(I Ain't Gonna Give Nobody None O' This) Jelly Roll'—and almost every time I'd cap them with, 'Jelly's gonna jam some now,' just as a kind of play on words. We always used

9840-466: The last four years has wound up on virtually every critics' best of list. Remain in Light should be no exception." AllMusic 's William Ruhlmann wrote that Talking Heads' musical transition, first witnessed in Fear of Music , came to full fruition in Remain in Light : "Talking Heads were connecting with an audience ready to follow their musical evolution, and the album was so inventive and influential." In

9963-587: The late '60s incorporated live jam techniques like Cream yet the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers allowed the "jam band" to become a genre unto itself; more recent bands following in their steps include Phish , moe. , Umphreys Mcgee , and Widespread Panic , all of which feature extended improvisational sessions. Other bands such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers also regularly perform live jam sessions. Bluegrass music also features

10086-588: The later '30s, record companies began releasing albums of previously released recordings of popular music in albums organized by performer, singers or bands, or by type of music, boogie-woogie , for example. When Columbia introduced the Long Playing record format in 1948, it was natural the term album would continue. Columbia expected that the record size distinction in 78s would continue, with classical music on 12" records and popular music on 10" records, and singles on 78s. Columbia's first popular 10" LP in fact

10209-492: The longer 12-inch 78s, playing around 4–5 minutes per side. For example, in 1924, George Gershwin recorded a drastically shortened version of his new seventeen-minute composition Rhapsody in Blue with Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra. The recording was issued on both sides of a single record, Victor 55225 and ran for 8m 59s. By 1910, though some European record companies had issued albums of complete operas and other works,

10332-483: The mid-1930s, record companies had adopted the album format for classical music selections that were longer than the roughly eight minutes that fit on both sides of a classical 12" 78 rpm record. Initially the covers were plain, with the name of the selection and performer in small type. In 1938, Columbia Records hired the first graphic designer in the business to design covers, others soon followed and colorful album covers cover became an important selling feature. By

10455-487: The mid-1960s to the late 1970s when the Compact Cassette format took over. The format is regarded as an obsolete technology, and was relatively unknown outside the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. Stereo 8 was created in 1964 by a consortium led by Bill Lear of Lear Jet Corporation , along with Ampex , Ford Motor Company , General Motors , Motorola , and RCA Victor Records . It

10578-511: The music of the Velvet Underground . The track was originally called "Weird Guitar Riff Song" because of its composition. It was conceived as a single riff before the band added a second; Eno alternated eight bars of each riff with corresponding bars of its counterpart. "Houses in Motion" incorporates long brass performances by Hassell, while "Listening Wind" features Arabic music influences, with Belew adding textural content via

10701-421: The notion of being a singer and a backing band; the ideal they aimed for, according to Byrne, was "sacrificing our egos for mutual cooperation". Byrne also wanted to escape "the psychological paranoia and personal torment" that he had been feeling and writing about in New York. Instead of writing music to Byrne's lyrics, the group performed extended instrumental jams , using the Fear of Music track " I Zimbra " as

10824-443: The other parts of the track with headphones to keep the timing right. In the 2000s, with the advent of digital recording , it became possible for musicians to record their part of a song in another studio in another part of the world, and send their contribution over digital channels to be included in the final product. Recordings that are done in one take without overdubbing or multi-tracking are termed "live", even when done in

10947-414: The other. The user would stack the two records onto the spindle of an automatic record changer, with side 1 on the bottom and side 2 (on the other record) on top. Side 1 would automatically drop onto the turntable and be played. When finished, the tone arm's position would trigger a mechanism which moved the arm out of the way, dropped the record with side 2, and played it. When both records had been played,

11070-464: The practice of issuing albums was not widely taken up by American record companies until the 1920s. By about 1910, bound collections of empty sleeves with a paperboard or leather cover, similar to a photograph album, were sold as record albums that customers could use to store their records (the term "record album" was printed on some covers). These albums came in both 10-inch and 12-inch sizes. The covers of these bound books were wider and taller than

11193-406: The primary medium for audio recordings a track could be identified visually from the grooves and many album covers or sleeves included numbers for the tracks on each side. On a compact disc the track number is indexed so that a player can jump straight to the start of any track. On digital music stores such as iTunes the term song is often used interchangeably with track regardless of whether there

11316-404: The record industry as a standard format for the "album". Apart from relatively minor refinements and the important later addition of stereophonic sound capability, it has remained the standard format for vinyl albums. The term "album" was extended to other recording media such as 8-track tape , cassette tape , compact disc , MiniDisc , and digital albums, as they were introduced. As part of

11439-623: The record not touching the shelf, and the term was applied to the collection. In the early nineteenth century, "album" was occasionally used in the titles of some classical music sets, such as Robert Schumann 's Album for the Young Opus 68, a set of 43 short pieces. With the advent of 78 rpm records in the early 1900s, the typical 10-inch disc could only hold about three minutes of sound per side, so almost all popular recordings were limited to around three minutes in length. Classical-music and spoken-word items generally were released on

11562-451: The recording, and lyrics or librettos . Historically, the term "album" was applied to a collection of various items housed in a book format. In musical usage, the word was used for collections of short pieces of printed music from the early nineteenth century. Later, collections of related 78s were bundled in book-like albums (one side of a 78 rpm record could hold only about 3.5 minutes of sound). When LP records were introduced,

11685-497: The records inside, allowing the record album to be placed on a shelf upright, like a book, suspending the fragile records above the shelf and protecting them. In the 1930s, record companies began issuing collections of 78s by one performer or of one type of music in specially assembled albums, typically with artwork on the front cover and liner notes on the back or inside cover. Most albums included three or four records, with two sides each, making six or eight compositions per album. By

11808-452: The release and distribution Compact Discs . The 2010s saw a revival of Compact Cassettes by independent record labels and DIY musicians who preferred the format because of its difficulty to share over the internet . The compact disc format replaced both the vinyl record and the cassette as the standard for the commercial mass-market distribution of physical music albums. After the introduction of music downloading and MP3 players such as

11931-675: The rhythms established by Worrell, who had studied at the New England Conservatory and Juilliard School . The expanded band's first appearance was on August 23, 1980, at the Heatwave festival in Ontario , for an audience of 70,000; Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times called the band's new music a "rock-funk sound with dramatic, near show-stopping force". On August 27, the expanded Talking Heads performed

12054-571: The same piece of music over and over again. You're hearing it slightly different every time. There's a lesson there." In 2018, the Beninese singer Angélique Kidjo released a song-for-song cover of Remain in Light , produced by Jeff Bhasker and released on his Kravenworks label. She described herself as a longtime fan of the song "Once in a Lifetime", and wanted to pay tribute to the album by emphasizing its inspiration from African music. In 2022, Harrison and Belew united for three concert dates for

12177-598: The singer D'Angelo and the drummer-producer Questlove (of The Roots ) prepared to record the former's Voodoo (2000) album at the studio. Their sessions there over the next five years resulted in the Roots' albums Things Fall Apart (1999) and Phrenology (2002), singer Erykah Badu 's second album Mama's Gun (2000), rapper Common 's albums Like Water for Chocolate (2000) and Electric Circus (2002), and singer Bilal 's debut album 1st Born Second . Badu has said that "just about everything from [ Mama's Gun ]

12300-414: The song "a kind of prescient jab at the excesses of the 1980s", Byrne disagreed with this categorization and commented that its lyrics were meant to be taken literally: "We're largely unconscious. You know, we operate half awake or on autopilot and end up, whatever, with a house and family and job and everything else, and we haven't really stopped to ask ourselves, 'How did I get here?'." Byrne has described

12423-684: The songs were conceived. “I didn't read those books,” said an incensed Weymouth. Remain in Light was certified Gold by the Canadian Recording Industry Association in February 1981 after shipping 50,000 copies, and by Recording Industry Association of America in September 1985 after shipping 500,000. Over one million copies of the album have been sold worldwide. The album attained widespread critical acclaim on release. Ken Tucker of Rolling Stone felt it

12546-418: The sound of the final product. Eno compared the creative process to "looking out to the world and saying, 'What a fantastic place we live in. Let's celebrate it.'" Sections and instrumentals were recorded one at a time in a discontinuous process. Loops played a key part at a time when computers could not yet adequately perform such functions. Talking Heads developed Remain in Light by recording jams, isolating

12669-503: The split, but the album was released with the label credit: "all songs written by David Byrne & Brian Eno (except "Houses In Motion" and 'The Overload", written by David Byrne, Brian Eno & Jerry Harrison)". Frantz, Harrison, and Weymouth disputed the credits, especially for a process they had partly funded. According to Weymouth, Byrne told Kalman to doctor the credits on Eno's advice. Later editions credit all band members. Frantz recalled in 2009 that he and Weymouth "felt very burned by

12792-420: The summer of 1980 and worked with Bender's colleague, Scott Fisher , on the computer renditions of the ideas. The process was tortuous because computer power was limited in the early 1980s and the mainframe alone took up several rooms. Weymouth and Fisher shared a passion for masks and used the concept to experiment with the portraits. The faces were blotted out with blocks of red. As Eno wanted to be featured on

12915-450: The term 'jam session' originated right in that cellar. Long before that, of course, the colored boys used to get together and play for kicks, but those were mostly private sessions, strictly for professional musicians, and the idea was usually to try to cut each other, each one trying to outdo the others and prove himself best. Those impromptu concerts of theirs were generally known as 'cuttin' contests.' Our idea…was to play together, to make

13038-494: The tracks that would become "Crosseyed and Painless", "The Great Curve", "Listening Wind" and "The Overload"; in 2022, he recalled that "all of [his] parts were done in one day". Byrne recorded the rough mixes to a cassette tape and improvised over them on a portable tape recorder. He tried to create onomatopoeic rhymes in the style of Eno, who believed that lyrics were never the center of a song's meaning. Byrne continuously listened to his recorded scatting until convinced that he

13161-406: The use of different harmonies and counter-melodies over pedal points . "Spidery riffs" and layered tracks of bass guitar and percussion are used extensively. The first side contains the more rhythmic songs, "Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)", "Crosseyed and Painless", and "The Great Curve", which include long instrumental interludes. "The Great Curve" contains extended guitar solos by Belew,

13284-416: The user would pick up the stack, turn it over, and put them back on the spindle—sides 3 and 4 would then play in sequence. Record changers were used for many years of the LP era, but eventually fell out of use. 8-track tape (formally Stereo 8: commonly known as the eight-track cartridge, eight-track tape, or simply eight-track) is a magnetic tape sound recording technology popular in the United States from

13407-471: The votes of hundreds of prominent reviewers. "So they congregated in a Nassau studio with Brian Eno and created a record without precedent ... Both daringly experimental and pop-accessible, Remain in Light may be the Talking Heads' defining moment." — Pitchfork ' s Ryan Schreiber in 2002 In 1989, Rolling Stone named Remain in Light the fourth-best album of the 1980s. In 1993, it

13530-410: The warplanes was relegated to the back of the sleeve and the doctored portraits became the front cover. Kalman later suggested that the planes were not removed altogether because they seemed appropriate during the then-ongoing Iran hostage crisis . Weymouth advised Kalman that she wanted simple typography in a bold sans-serif font. M&Co. complied, with Kalman coming up with the idea of inverting

13653-561: The word 'session' a lot, and I think the expression 'jam session' grew up out of this playful yelling back and forth. The New York scene during World War II was famous for its after-hours jam sessions. One of the most famous was the regular after-hours jam at Minton's Playhouse in New York City that ran in the 1940s and early 1950s. The jam sessions at Minton's were a fertile meeting place and proving ground for both established soloists like Ben Webster and Lester Young as well as

13776-416: The younger jazz musicians who would soon become leading exponents of the bebop movement, including Thelonious Monk (Minton's house pianist), saxophone player Charlie Parker , and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie . The Minton's jams had competitive " cutting contests ," in which soloists would try to keep up with the house band and outdo each other in improvisational skill. Influenced by jazz, Cuban music saw

13899-592: Was Frank Sinatra's first album, the four-record eight-song The Voice of Frank Sinatra , originally issued in 1946. RCA's introduction of the smaller 45 rpm format later in 1948 disrupted Columbia's expectations. By the mid-1950s, 45s dominated the singles market and 12" LPs dominated the album market and both 78s and 10" LPs were discontinued. In the 1950s albums of popular music were also issued on 45s, sold in small heavy paper-covered "gate-fold" albums with multiple discs in sleeves or in sleeves in small boxes. This format disappeared around 1960. Sinatra's "The Voice"

14022-548: Was a brave and absorbing attempt to locate a common ground in the era's divergent and often hostile musical genres; he concluded, " Remain in Light yields scary, funny music to which you can dance and think, think and dance, dance and think, ad infinitum ." Robert Christgau , in The Village Voice , called the record one "in which David Byrne conquers his fear of music in a visionary Afrofunk synthesis—clear-eyed, detached, almost mystically optimistic". Michael Kulp of

14145-548: Was a further development of the similar Stereo-Pak four-track cartridge created by Earl "Madman" Muntz . A later quadraphonic version of the format was announced by RCA in April 1970 and first known as Quad-8, then later changed to just Q8. The Compact Cassette was a popular medium for distributing pre-recorded music from the early 1970s to the early 2000s. The first "Compact Cassette" was introduced by Philips in August 1963 in

14268-415: Was a jam." According to music journalist Michael Gonzales, their sessions were marked by an experimentation with "dirty soul, muddy water blues, Black Ark dub science, mix-master madness, screeching guitars, old school hip-hop, gutbucket romanticism, inspired lyricism, African chats and aesthetics, pimpin' politics, strange Moogs , Kraftwerk synths and spacey noise." The musical approach also influenced

14391-414: Was from this that in medieval and modern times, album came to denote a book of blank pages in which verses, autographs, sketches, photographs and the like are collected. This in turn led to the modern meaning of an album as a collection of audio recordings issued as a single item. The first audio albums were actually published by the publishers of photograph albums. Single 78 rpm records were sold in

14514-424: Was in fact performed by Byrne (manipulating a Lexicon Prime Time digital delay unit). The "rhythmical rant" in "Crosseyed and Painless"—"Facts are simple and facts are straight. Facts are lazy and facts are late"—was influenced by early hip-hop , specifically Kurtis Blow 's " The Breaks ", which was given to Byrne by Frantz. "Once in a Lifetime" borrows heavily from preachers' diatribes. While some critics deemed

14637-487: Was included at number 11 in NME ' s list of The 50 Greatest Albums Of The '80s, and at number 68 in the publication's Greatest Albums Of All Time list. In 1997, The Guardian collated worldwide data from renowned critics, artists, and radio DJs , which placed the record at number 43 in the list of the 100 Best Albums Ever. In 1999, it was included by Vibe as one of its "100 Essential Albums Of The 20th Century". In 2000 it

14760-399: Was issued in 1952 on two extended play 45s, with two songs on each side, in both packagings. The 10-inch and 12-inch LP record (long play), or 33 + 1 ⁄ 3   rpm microgroove vinyl record, is a gramophone record format introduced by Columbia Records in 1948. A single LP record often had the same or similar number of tunes as a typical album of 78s, and it was adopted by

14883-443: Was no longer "hearing nonsense". After he was satisfied, Harrison invited Nona Hendryx to Sigma Sound to record backing vocals for the album. She was advised extensively on her vocal delivery by Byrne, Frantz, and Weymouth, and often sang in a trio with Byrne and Eno. Brass player Jon Hassell , who had worked with Byrne and Eno on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts , was hired to perform trumpet and horn overdubs. In August 1980, half of

15006-411: Was the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption from the mid-1960s to the early 21st century, a period known as the album era . Vinyl LPs are still issued, though album sales in the 21st-century have mostly focused on CD and MP3 formats. The 8-track tape was the first tape format widely used alongside vinyl from 1965 until being phased out by 1983, being gradually supplanted by

15129-581: Was voted number 227 in Colin Larkin 's All Time Top 1000 Albums . In 2002, Pitchfork featured Remain in Light at number two, behind only Sonic Youth 's Daydream Nation , in its Top 100 Albums Of The 1980s list. In 2003, VH1 named the record at number 88 during its "100 Greatest Albums" countdown, while Slant Magazine included it in its unnumbered shortlist of "50 Essential Pop Albums". Rolling Stone placed it at number 129 in its December 2015 issue of " The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time ", as

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