Byrne, David

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DAVID BYRNE

Born: Dumbarton, Scotland, 14 May 1952

Genre: Rock, World

Best-selling album since 1990: Look into the Eyeball (2001)

Hit songs since 1990: "She's Mad," "Angels"

As lead singer for the new wave rock band Talking Heads, David Byrne was a musical pioneer of the 1970s and 1980s, combining punk music's energy and bite with the polyrhythmic beats of world music. Emerging as a solo artist in the late 1980s, Byrne continued experimenting with musical pluralism, drawing together alternative rock, Latin music, worldbeat, and R&B with an off-kilter sensibility. Never losing his quirky diction and slightly goofy persona, Byrne brought a detached air of intellectualism to his work, often collaborating with celebrated avant-garde theater artists such as Robert Wilson. While critics sometimes perceived his songwriting as ponderous and trite, most celebrated Byrne's unique ability to create vivid, complex sonic landscapes. In contemporary pop, where eclecticism is often prized for its own sake, Byrne has made tasteful and adroit musical choices; his far-ranging explorations are unified through the strength and integrity of his vision.

Born in Scotland but raised in Baltimore, Maryland, Byrne played in various bands as a teenager before attending the Rhode Island School of Design. Feeling dissociated from the school's mostly upper-class student body, Byrne dropped out after one year but continued to live and perform in Rhode Island. In the early 1970s he joined forces with his fellow students Chris Frantz and Tina Wey-mouth to form the Artistics, later renamed Talking Heads after the band relocated to New York in 1974. Signing with Sire Records in 1977, Talking Heads initially recorded in an edgy, new wave rock style, in evidence on the minor 1978 hit, "Psycho Killer." But through the influence of their producer, the experimental rock artist Brian Eno, they soon began adding electronic instruments and African percussion. As early as 1981 Byrne began to pursue solo work, teaming with Eno for My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981), an album that, through its incorporation of sonic elements such as Muslim chanting and Lebanese mountain singing, anticipated the "world music" explosion of the late 1980s. Byrne also worked on collaborations with Wilson, acted in and directed the film True Stories (1986), and won an Academy Award for his work scoring The Last Emperor (1989), an acclaimed film by the Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci.

While critically acclaimed, Byrne's solo albums—perhaps overshadowed by his work with Talking Heads—have never produced many hits. Leaving the group in 1988, Byrne released Rei Momo (1989), an engaging collection underscored with Latin rhythms, and Uh-Oh (1992), on which he explored styles as diverse as R&B/funk and Jamaican reggae. While critics were largely disappointed with David Byrne (1994), complaining that the album's stripped-down musical setting accentuated the puzzling obliqueness of Byrne's lyrics, they responded positively to Feelings (1997), featuring a prominent guest appearance by the electronic, "trip-hop" dance band Morcheeba. Sonically adventurous, Byrne's albums of this period resist critical analysis, demanding acceptance on their own idiosyncratic terms.

In 2001 Byrne released what many view as his finest solo album, Look into the Eyeball. While lyrics such as "Jesus is cool / Jesus is scared / Baby you're the only car I drive" (from the album's opener, "U.B. Jesus") evince Byrne's trademark opacity, the album as a whole succeeds by employing a muted, restrained style. Songs such as "The Accident" recall the sonorous work of modern classical composers such as Steve Reich, while "The Revolution" sports an affectingly spare arrangement of acoustic guitar and strings. Two highlights are "Like Humans Do" and "Neighborhood," arranged by the noted 1970s soul producer Thom Bell, who underscores Byrne's eccentric vocal style with a lush, rhythmic groove. In a move emphasizing his separation from mainstream pop music, Byrne spices "Walk on Water" with a biting critique of the shallowness of rock stardom: "He can walk on the water / But he can't stop fallin' in." The sting, however, is softened by the giddiness of the rest of the lyrics: "Get up, you men and women / Walk on, like fishes swimming."

Beginning his career with the influential rock band Talking Heads, Byrne in the 1980s and 1990s led forays into diverse music from many cultures. Esoteric, challenging, and sometimes frustrating, Byrne's solo work is striking in its refusal to abide by the strictures of any particular school of music. Like avant-garde artists such as Wilson and Laurie Anderson, Byrne commands a limited yet significant following among an artistically educated audience.

SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:

The Catherine Wheel (Luaka Bop, 1981); Rei Momo (Luaka Bop/Sire, 1989); The Forest (Luaka Bop, 1991); Uh-Oh (Luaka Bop, 1992); David Byrne (Luaka Bop, 1994); Feelings (Luaka Bop, 1997); Look into the Eyeball (Virgin, 2001).With Talking Heads: Talking Heads: 77 (Sire, 1977); Remain in Light (Sire, 1980); Speaking in Tongues (Sire, 1983); Stop Making Sense (Sire, 1984). Soundtrack: The Last Emperor (Virgin, 1987).