Adventures in Listening, October 3, 2023: Same As it Ever Was
Talking Heads return to the big screen, Willie Nelson dabbles in bluegrass, and U2 takes a swing through Las Vegas. Plus: Would you believe there's a new Zach Bryan project?
Stop Making Sense (Dir. Jonathan Demme)
Revisiting the iconic Talking Heads concert doc Stop Making Sense— gloriously restored, remastered, and re-released in IMAX, just in time for its 40th anniversary— I thought of at least a dozen cinematic reference points. For its sheer athleticism, its slapstick comedy, and its deft practical effects, the movie belongs in conversation with any number of silent classics (Safety Last, let’s say), with the madcap genius of Tati’s Playtime, with transportive musicals like Singin’ in the Rain, even with extended rock and roll gag reels like A Hard Day’s Night. Strangely, the movie I thought about the most was The Muppet Movie, which provides a narrative framework for the Heads’ big-screen origins story. Here David Byrne inhabits the role of Kermit the Frog, starting off alone with his stringed instrument but hopping from scene to scene as he recruits a rainbow coalition of fellow dreamers, all united by their pursuit of making something joyful together. The movie’s central community-building narrative— the way the music flows out of Byrne through a dozen tributary paths, but then flows back into him as his bandmates reflect his deep grooves and zany physicality— effectively disarms any retroactive allegations of cultural appropriation: This is a band of white American musicians whose love for African music feels fully sincere, and whose merry troupe finds room for Black players and dancers in critical roles, never treated as magical or as tokens. The viscerality of this film only works with a band as cerebral as Talking Heads; whereas Springsteen or U2 trades in literal meaning, Talking Heads’ songs work in a kind of dream logic, their subliminal nature finding its perfect expression and release in this wide-eyed celebration of human faces and of bodies in motion. See this in IMAX if you can, but above all, just see it; for me, this is a desert island movie pick. Oh, and one more thing: I agree with the Letterboxd user who says Byrne should’ve won a Best Actor trophy for this, but only if we can also agree that Tina Weymouth is the ultimate scene-stealer.
Willie Nelson - Bluegrass
In 2010, Willie Nelson released an album called Country Music— its title a sly nod to the fact that, for all his wide-ranging genre excursions, it can almost seem surprising to hear Willie playing straight-ahead honky tonk. By contrast, there’s really nothing surprising at all about Willie releasing an album called Bluegrass, except maybe that he didn’t do so years ago. His songs are so pliable, so endlessly adaptable to various strains of porous Americana, that to recast warhorses like “Sad Songs and Waltzes” and “On the Road Again” with a troupe of bluegrass ringers feels like a natural, unforced expression of Willie’s genre agnosticism. The lickety-split banjos of “Bloody Mary Morning” were bluegrass-adjacent to begin with, but Bluegrass is as satisfying in its slower moments as it is when it’s dabbling in full-tilt hoedown energy; adding some dobro twang to “Somebody Pick Up My Pieces” just puts a new spin on its woebegone country-soul. If nothing on the album feels revelatory, that’s only because Willie has navigated the space between genres so well and for so long. Bluegrass simply testifies to the depth and durability of his songbook— as if we didn’t know already.
Zach Bryan - Boys of Faith
Mere weeks after the release of his self-titled opus, the ever-prolific Zach Bryan returns with a five-song EP called Boys of Faith— a capstone that somehow enriches and detracts from the previous album’s achievement. On the one hand, this short set is notably looser than the ballad-heavy Zach Bryan, leaning a bit more into nimble country-rock and sinewy Americana. Then again, this EP marks the point— for me, anyway— at which Bryan’s emotional palette starts to feel a bit too monochromatic; when he sings about being awake with worry since 4AM, or pawning his guitar to afford a plane ticket to see his girl, his lyrics feel almost as caricatured as Matt Berninger’s on the new National record. And speaking of being eternally on-brand, Bon Iver shows up to add some moody falsetto to the title track; I can only assume a guest spot for Phoebe Bridgers is next.
U2 - “Atomic City”
It’s almost like Bono just forgot how to write a half-decent song lyric— except anyone who’s heard his revisions and refinements on Songs of Surrender knows better. Maybe he just needs to live with a song for a few decades before he can pare it down to its core revelation. Whatever the case, the new song about Las Vegas— a promotional single for the band’s high-tech residency at the Sphere— is even more nonsensical than “Vertigo” or “Get on Your Boots,” its references to UFOs and Sinatra never congealing into anything more than Sin City pastiche. But you know who sounds great on this song? Larry Mullen Jr., who comes out pummeling and never lets up.