2 keepers
keeper avg .181
Following a full two years after the band's most successful album and single to date ("Speaking in Tongues" and "Burning Down The House"), "Little Creatures" surpassed it to be the most successful album in the band's discography. To coincide with the times, the album had a much brighter and more slickly produced style than any Talking Heads album so far, exemplified by the decidedly buoyant single "And She Was"****. By comparison the rest of side one is surprisingly forgettable, especially the eerie but tepid "Give Me Back My Name" with its mewling guitars and the country ditty title song.
The more assertive second side kicks off with the simple but punchy single "Stay Up Late" and the strutting "Walk It Down". The vigorous "Television Man" manages to be both topical and prescient, while just one breakdown pushes it to a slightly excessive 6-minutes. The album ends with the Talking Heads-iest song of all time "Road to Nowhere"****, a marching new wave juggernaut which builds to an exuberant conclusion; there were a lot of songs around this time with a similar theme, and we can all be glad they didn't make it yet another "Ship of Fools" song. Despite the album's massive success the US and around the world, "And She Was" was the only single to chart in the US at all. And regardless if this album was their artistic peak or if that point had already passed, their career certainly wound down after this, except for the popularity of "Wild Wild Life" and the fantastic "(Nothing But) Flowers."
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