"True Stories" Album Description:
I still remember 1986 as a glare of TV light and bad living-room carpeting, and then Talking Heads stroll in with "True Stories" like they’re carrying a strange little postcard they found in a Texas parking lot. It’s their seventh studio album, and it doesn’t try to out-weird "Remain in Light" or out-cute "Little Creatures". It just sits there, smirking, and lets the songs do the talking.
The time: 1986
The whole project is tied to David Byrne’s film "True Stories", and you can feel that cinematic itch in the pacing. "Wild Wild Life" wasn’t just a single to me; it was a chunk of MTV that kept popping up, half music video, half scene. Bright faces, odd gestures, that nervous American cheerfulness that feels a bit rehearsed when you stare at it too long.
How it was made (without the mythology)
The band produced it themselves, which explains the stubborn little choices that don’t sound like anyone “helped” them. A lot of the foundation was recorded at Sigma Sound in New York with Eric "E.T." Thorngren behind the glass, and then the work spread out: O’Henry Sound in Toluca Lake, Studio Southwest in Sunnyvale, and even the Arcadia Theater in Dallas. It’s not one sacred room. It’s a small convoy of tape boxes and decisions.
What it sounds like when you stop describing it and just play it
This record moves like a clean shirt worn by a person who still sweats. Guitars that jangle and then pull back. Little electronic tics that nudge the groove instead of drowning it. "Radio Head" clicks along with that anxious grin, "Puzzlin’ Evidence" lurches and jokes at the same time, and "City of Dreams" closes the door with a big, slightly unreal sigh. It’s Talking Heads acting “normal,” which is of course their own special kind of suspicious.
Collector footnote (because I can’t help myself)
You’ll see pressings from different countries (yes, including Italy on certain copies), and that’s manufacturing, not magic. Still, I get it: you hold a foreign-pressed "True Stories" and it feels like the album traveled without you. Convenient illusion. I keep mine anyway.
In the end, "True Stories" is the Talking Heads record that smiles politely while it rearranges the furniture behind your back. Not their sharpest knife. Not their dullest either. It just leaves the room looking different, and pretends it was always like that.
References / citations
- Wikipedia: "True Stories" (Talking Heads album) overview (release date, studios, film link)
- MusicBrainz: release data + detailed credit/recording notes (engineers, locations)
- AllMusic: album page (recording locations list and discography context)
- Discogs: selected release credits (recording/mixing notes vary by pressing)
- Vinyl Records Gallery: high-resolution "True Stories" album cover photos (your collection)
