Remain in Light

Remain in Light
Album cover containing four portraits covered by red blocks of colour, captioned "TALKING HEADS" (with inverted "A"s) at the top and (much smaller) "REMAIN IN LIGHT" at the bottom.
Studio album by
Talking Heads
ReleasedOctober 8, 1980 (1980-10-08)
RecordedJuly–August 1980
Studio
Genre
Length40:10
LabelSire
ProducerBrian Eno
Talking Heads chronology
Fear of Music
(1979) 		Remain in Light
(1980) 		The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads
(1982)
Singles from Remain in Light
  1. "The Great Curve"
    Released: 1980 (France)
  2. "Once in a Lifetime"
    Released: January 1981
  3. "Houses in Motion"
    Released: May 1981[1]
  4. "Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)"
    Released: August 1981 (Japan)
  5. "Crosseyed and Painless"
    Released: November 1981 (Germany)
Back cover
Album cover containing a drawing of a mountain range and four mostly red warplanes flying in formation. There is green text on the left hand side and a barcode in the top right corner.
Artwork originally created as front cover

Remain in Light is the fourth studio album by the American rock band Talking Heads, released on October 8, 1980, by Sire Records. The band's third and final album to be produced by Brian Eno, Remain in Light was recorded at Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas and Sigma Sound Studios in New York in July and August 1980.

After the release of Fear of Music in 1979, Talking Heads and Eno sought to dispel notions of the band as a mere vehicle for frontman and songwriter David Byrne. Drawing influence from Nigerian Afrobeat musician Fela Kuti, they blended African polyrhythms and funk with electronics, recording instrumental tracks as a series of looping grooves. Session musicians included the guitarist Adrian Belew, the singer Nona Hendryx, and the trumpeter Jon Hassell.

Byrne struggled with writer's block, but adopted a scattered, stream-of-consciousness lyrical style inspired by early rap and academic literature on Africa. The album artwork was conceived by the bassist, Tina Weymouth, and the drummer, Chris Frantz, with the help of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's computers and design company, M&Co. The band hired additional members for a promotional tour, after which they went on a year-long hiatus to pursue side projects.

Remain in Light attained widespread acclaim from critics for its sonic experimentation, rhythmic innovations, and merging of disparate genres into a cohesive whole. The album reached number 19 on the US Billboard 200 album chart and number 21 on the UK Albums Chart, and produced the singles "Once in a Lifetime" and "Houses in Motion". It has been featured in several publications' lists of the best albums of the 1980s and of all time, and is often considered Talking Heads' magnum opus. In 2017, the Library of Congress deemed the album "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant"[2] and selected it for preservation in the National Recording Registry.[3]

  1. ^ Strong, Martin Charles (1995). The Great Rock Discography. p. 809. ISBN 9780862415419.
  2. ^ Cataldo, Jennie (November 8, 2018). "Talking Heads' 'Remain in Light'". The World. Retrieved December 1, 2023.
  3. ^ "National Recording Registry Picks Are "Over the Rainbow"". Library of Congress. March 29, 2017. Retrieved March 29, 2017.