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This December will mark 40 years since the Talking Heads staged the three-night Hollywood residency that director Jonathan Demme filmed for the celebrated concert film, Stop Making Sense. The movie will get a theatrical re-release later this year, with a 4K restoration thanks to A24, and the band will also drop an expanded reissue of the soundtrack on Aug. 18.
That album will feature two songs previously unavailable on the film’s soundtrack, including a lively rendition of “Cities,” out today, July 7. The single from 1979’s Fear of Music finds Byrne animatedly riffing on cities England and the United States. “I’m checkin’ ’em out,” he sings, “I’m checkin’ ’em out … find a city, find myself a city to live in.” The guitars and percussion skitter around his voice as he digs into the drama of Elvis and the ancient Greeks when singing about Memphis.
The reissue will also feature “Big Business/I Zimbra,” which completes the set list from the three shows, presenting the full Stop Making Sense concert for the first time. (The previously unreleased tracks were available on some home video releases of the film.) The unexpurgated soundtrack will be available as a limited-edition, double-vinyl set, as well as digitally with a Dolby Atmos mix by guitarist Jerry Harrison and E.T. Thorngren, who mixed the original album. The vinyl release will also come with a 28-page booklet containing previously unpublished photos and liner notes with new interviews with all four band members.
“We had done a live album before this [1982’s The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads], but coupled with the film, and with the improved mixes and sound quality, this record reached a whole new audience,” Byrne says in the new liner notes. “As often happens, the songs got an added energy when we performed them live and were inspired by having an audience. In many ways, these versions are more exciting than the studio recordings, so maybe that’s why a lot of folks discovered us via this record.”
Drummer Chris Frantz spoke about the joy he felt onstage, comparing it to the sensation of the Holy Spirit entering a congregation in a southern church. “That is what happened to us onstage every night, and from my seat behind the drums, I recognized that this was happening to the audience, too,” he said. “Joy was visible in front of me and all around me every night.”
Stop Making Sense ranked Number Four on Rolling Stone’s 2021 list of the Best Music Documentaries of All Time. In a 2014 interview, Frantz spoke about what it was like to go to a screening of the movie and see people dancing in the theater as if they were at a concert in person. “I actually saw that happen and I thought, ‘Wow, this is cool,’” he told Rolling Stone. “I’d never seen that before, nor since. Well at the Rocky Horror Picture Show, where there’s a lot of audience participation, but that’s a different type of thing.”
