Punk Without Punks

ROCK'S NEW WAVE is a broad and diverse movement, encompassing all sorts of bizarre and seemingly apocalyptic visions. Listeners, in fact are often tempted to make comparisons to the Fall of Rome--in the time honored introductory Social Studies fashion--when confronted with the sight of a man being paid to molest a party doll while wearing Alligator Baggies, and other assorted fun and games.

But the New Wave isn't just a bunch of no-talents doing worn out Iggy Pop imitations, nor is it just the infamous Sex Pistols, the new prophets of the Gross. It is also a group like the Talking Heads.

For starters, the Talking Heads do not look like the average New Wave band. Not only are they not punks, they actually look more like slightly decayed preppies. They have short hair, dress neatly in button-down shirts and peer calmly from the back of their album, looking for all the world like young stock brokers on holiday. They let it be known that they are adults, not raving juvenile delinquents like their comrades.

Talking Heads: 77 shows that the mature outlook displayed on the album cover carries over into the group's music. This is heady stuff--none of this "God Save the Queen" business. David Byrne, who wrote all the songs, indulges in complex, self-absorbed musings, sometimes assuming ironic personas to comment on the emptiness of life in the '70s.

In what is perhaps the most deceptive song on the album, "Don't Worry About The Government," Byrne sings about how wonderful modern life is; "My building has every convenience/It's going to make life easy for me."

The music bubbles along behind him with a tinkling McCartneyes que chorus, underscoring the naivete of the singer. Then he sings "I see the laws made in Washington D.C./I think of ones I consider my favorites..." Favorite laws? He loves civil servants too? Suddenly this engaging paen to the comfortable life has become a vision out of 1984.

Byrne is anelusive writer, one moment singing about love and sensations, the next saying something like "be a little more selfish/it might do you some good." Brrrrr. With a voice that is a hybrid of Donald (Steely Dan) Fagen and David Bowie, Byrne has a tendency to sound spacey and detached. He compounds the effect by singing from an appropriately spacey and detached point of view. In nearly every song the singer marvels at some new sensual experience, the problems of life or his friends. His outlook recalls those aliens in "Star Trek" who rhapsodize about the flood of feeling they get when they take on human form so Captain Kirk can start smooching them.

Songs such as "New Feeling" and "The Book I Read" come from the point of view of a self-absorbed person cautiously venturing out of his isolation. In Byrne's world everyone is too busy to spend time with others--unless you "neglect your duties." "I'll be in trouble" he delcares, but he doesn't care." "I been to college, I been to school," he says, and he's "the smartest man around." But when this self-confident posturer comes in contact with love he has to ask, "Where is my common sense/How did I get in a jam like this?" Byrne sings the '70s stereotype in his songs. His lyrics are animated by the Time magazine "Mood of the Nation" assessment of this decade: selfish, troubled, absorbed in personal concerns and hedonism, and empty. Byrne jabs at this view even as he accepts it in himself.

"Tentative Decisions" is a cut at the manufactured complexity of relationships and the pressure on people to decide. "Girls ask; can I define decision? Boys ask; can I describe their function." More horrors from the folks who brought us the word "relationship" in place of love.

In "No Compassion," (an intellectualized version of the Pistols' "No Feelings") Byrne derides artificial complexities in a chilling statement of apathy. "Compassion is a virtue, but I don't have the time," he sings in his hollow tenor; "What are you, in love with your problems?" Not only is Byrne empty, but he despises those who try to fill their emptiness up with phony difficulties.

There are other sides of Byrne's psyche that get play on this album as well. An especially interesting tidbit is a song called "Psycho Killer." This number could well be dedicated to David Berkowitz, with such lines as, "I hate people when they're not polite." Byrne lapses into French on the chorus, just to let us know that our friendly psycho is not dummy.

Then again, Byrne comes through as a romantic in songs like "Happy Day" and "Pulled Up." He rambles on, saying he sees his name go down in history when he daydreams, and generally employing a stream of consciousness technique for pseudo-profound effects.

All this gabble about David Byrne must have you wondering if there is anyone else in the band. There certainly is, and they are quite competent players at that.

TINA WEYMOUTH is one of the rarest oddities of the rock world, a female bassist, and she lays down a strong beat, along with drummer Chris Frantz. Talking Heads' music is very slick and sophisticated, moving from Latin shuffle beats, through disco pop to straight rock.

Guitarist-keyboard player Jerry Harrison joins with Byrne to handle the guitar work, which is spare and economical to suit the New Wave fashion. Nobody stretches out for a solo on this record; the effect is to provide a tight ensemble sound to back the eccentric Byrne's lyrics. The music is danceable and listenable without being hard on the ears, but it isn't all that exciting. It reminds the listener of the blander moments of the new Steely Dan record, but with much sparer instrumentation.

In short the main appeal of this record is its blend of musical and lyrical avantgardness. The Head strive for a pop sound that is quirky enough to interest an intellectual audience, and Talking Heads: 77 is truly a modernist product to use the old sales pitch: If you liked Waiting for Godot, you'll love this album. But if you are turned off by the idea of troubled monologues, spoken by a "70s Man" surveying the new vacancy, devoid of the anger that animates a punk like Johnny Rotten, then save your bread. "Q'est-ce que c'est Talking Heads" indeed.