Talking Heads Reunion Spurs Unexpected Afterlife and Celebrates 30 Greatest Songs

Talking Heads’ reunion last September, for a brief press tour to support the re-release of Jonathan Demme‘s Stop Making Sense concert film, was one of music’s most unlikely comebacks. Here, after all, were a band who’d not just split acrimoniously – as recently as 2020, while promoting his Remain In Love memoir, Chris Frantz snipped at former bandmate David Byrne, ‘He can’t imagine that anyone else would be important’ – but who had also moved creatively into very different spaces. Yet, coming together to celebrate their landmark movie, being in one another’s company for a period clearly found them reaching an accord. ‘We didn’t hate each other,’ Tina Weymouth confides to Sam Richards in this month’s cover story. ‘We were just annoyed!’

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So as Byrne, Jerry Harrison, Weymouth, and Frantz reveal their plans for the next phase in their band’s unexpected afterlife, we celebrate the 30 greatest songs by these pioneering outsiders – from the twitchy minimalism of their early records to the Technicolor blowouts of their commercial peak. It’s their first Uncut cover story, so we’re especially proud of this one.

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What else? 2024 is shaping up to be another strong year for new music. I’ve got on repeat play new albums by Adrianne Lenker, Julia Holter, and Phosphorescent – all of whom you can read about in this issue (with more on Adrianne to come next month) – along with relative upstarts Rosali and Arushi Jain, who have both been on our radar for a few years and we’re delighted to finally cover properly in the magazine.

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There are some familiar faces in this issue, too – we have Tom Pinnock’s peerless piece on John Fahey, plus new interviews with Mike Scott, Kim Gordon, J Mascis, Mud, Dion, and (I’m particularly pleased with this) Michael Moorcock.

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As ever, we hope there’s a lot in here for you to enjoy.

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Until next month, then…