I watched Stop Making Sense last night - it was the first time I had seen it since I was 8 or 9 years old and my parents dragged me to the theater (I remember that I fell asleep). Maybe this memory subconsciously affected my future enjoyment of Talking Heads - I always liked the singles, but it took me years to realize how great a band they are.
Two events changed my opinion of the band - the first was hearing Phish covering Remain in Light in its entirety for one of their Halloween shows. The other was buying Fela Kuti's Zombie and hearing the parallels between it and Remain in Light (and most of Talking Heads' catalog).
But the biggest gateway to my fanship was getting a copy of The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads, the live double LP that was released before SMS (this was before the excellent CD reissue was released a few years ago with bonus tracks). I don't know if there are many bands that can touch Talking Heads in a live setting, whether it's just the four of them or the expanded band. Stop Making Sense makes a case for them as a visual band as well - this song was not only my favorite when I heard it live, but it's probably the coolest thing they do in the movie.
Here's one version of the song:
And here's the video from the movie, in a slightly different version:
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