In 1999, former frontman of art-rock band Talking Heads David Byrne wrote an angry article called I Hate World Music, for The New York Times, in which he criticised the term “world music” as both absurd and reductive. I remember the article well and agreed with much of what he wrote, particularly the notion that such a term lumped together Congolese dance music and Bulgarian choral ensembles on the same rack in record stores. Reducing, say, the entire music of a continent like Africa to such a term is another issue that seemed to annoy Byrne (and from my experience many African musicians as well).
Musician and former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne.
Byrne discusses the issue of “other musics” at length in his latest book, How Music Works (Canongate, UK, paperback), a monster tome of nearly 400 pages that covers his life as a working musician,
the workings of music industry production and distribution and just about everything and anything else connected to music, from its origins to our neural response to it.
Byrne is most famously known for his work with Talking Heads, his solo albums and collaborative work with artists such as Brian Eno, but he has also written a book on cycling (Bicycle Diaries) and published another on line drawings (Arboretum). His work as label boss of Luaka Bop records has resulted in some terrific compilations of Brazilian, Afro-Peruvian, African and Cuban music.
Byrne notes that “the ‘ageing rocker bio’ is a crowded shelf” and was something he had tried to avoid doing for many years, although plenty about his life and musical development appears in the book, as does his work on Talking Heads’ projects. But this is not a rock autobiography — the scope and range is far too wide for that and Byrne’s chatty narrative style allows him to veer off on tangents that include subjects as diverse as Pythagorean acousmatics, Madonna’s contracts, Midi software,
the history of recording technology, the physiological and neurological effects of music on the listener, architecture, birdsong and bone flutes.
How Music Works by David Byrne.
One radical move he makes in the book is to reveal the cost of recording and how contracts work — he notes that he received $225,000 in advance for his solo album Grown Backwards, then itemises all the costs of production, leaving him with $58,000. Not bad? He says it is the same as that made by an elementary teacher in New Jersey. This information is fascinating as the record industry rarely reveals how contracts and the financing work. Byrne also gives advice on running a “happening” nightclub and gives six models which bands can use to produce music (you’ll have to read the book to find out which one will work for your band).
I’m not sure that some of his off-the-cuff comments and sometimes rudimentary asides on weighty subjects would impress academics, but his enthusiasm for music and his acceptance of and engagement with new technology stand out. He’s clearly a curious person, keen to see where the music industry is heading.
One of my favourite sections of the book deals with the conception and development of his collaborative (with Eno) and ground-breaking album, My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts, which came out in the early 1980s. Byrne says he was interested in creating a fake album of field recordings, similar to a short story by Jorge Luis Borges, but the project was later dropped.
It was then conceived as a film soundtrack before eventually they hit on the idea of a collage of found sounds, some from radio recordings, others from records of field recordings and popular music from places like Africa. Neither Byrne nor Eno sang on the album. He also notes that similar work was being done by German musician Holger Czukay. The technology and approach was inspired by DJs and musicians working in “dance” music at the time — Byrne writes about how the mixer in the studio was turned into an instrument. You can draw a line from Byrne and Eno’s work on this amazing album to the found sounds on tracks by current musicians such as Manu Chao.
Artfully produced, with lots of photos, charts, diagrams and illustrations, How Music Works is an excellent and stimulating read. You can find it in the major bookshops in Bangkok.
This column can be contacted at: clewley.john@gmail.com
