Talking Heads were part of the first wave of New York City punk rock, but their angular, jittery grooves were a long way from the full-throttle assault of the Ramones or the Dictators. Their interest in funk and African rhythms eventually started moving forward, peaking on the extended jams of 1980’s Remain in Light before connecting with a pop audience on Speaking in Tongues in 1983. On the follow-up tour, captured in Jonathan Demme’s phenomenal concert film Stop Making Sense and its soundtrack, the band recreated its journey — opening with David Byrne alone onstage with a boom box and gradually adding musicians until the show was a full-on psycho-Afro-disco frenzy, and “Burning Down the House” wasn’t just a song title, it was a manifesto.
All-TIME 100 Albums
The album may be dead, but it's certainly not forgotten. TIME's critics have chosen the 100 greatest and most influential musical compilations since 1954.
Stop Making Sense
Full List
1950s
1960s
- Abbey Road
- Bitches Brew
- Stand!
- Astral Weeks
- The Band
- At Folsom Prison
- Lady Soul
- The Beatles (“The White Album”)
- Are You Experienced
- I Never Loved a Man the Way I Loved You
- Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
- The Velvet Underground and Nico
- Blonde on Blonde
- Pet Sounds
- Revolver
- Highway 61 Revisited
- Otis Blue
- Rubber Soul
- A Love Supreme
- Live at the Apollo (1963)
- Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music
- King of the Delta Blues
1970s
- London Calling
- One Nation Under a Groove
- Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols
- Rumours
- Hotel California
- Ramones
- Songs in the Key of Life
- Born to Run
- Horses
- Red Headed Stranger
- Call Me
- Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
- The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust
- Exile on Main Street
- Talking Book
- The Harder They Come
- Blue
- Coat of Many Colors
- Hunky Dory
- Led Zeppelin IV (a.k.a. Zoso)
- Paranoid
- Sticky Fingers
- Tapestry
- What’s Going On
- Who’s Next
- After the Gold Rush
- Bridge Over Troubled Water
- John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band
- Moondance
1980s
- Like a Prayer
- Paul’s Boutique
- The Stone Roses
- It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
- Straight Outta Compton
- Straight Outta Compton
- Document
- Paid in Full
- Sign O’ The Times
- The Joshua Tree
- Graceland
- Master of Puppets
- Raising Hell
- Legend
- Stop Making Sense
- The Great Twenty-Eight
- Thriller
- Back in Black
- Purple Rain
1990s
2000s