Talking Heads were an American
New WaveNew Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
and
avant-gardeAvant-garde music is a term used to characterize music which is thought to be ahead of its time, i.e. containing innovative elements or fusing different genres....
band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991. The band comprised
David ByrneDavid Byrne may refer to:*David Byrne , musician and former Talking Heads frontman**David Byrne , his eponymous album*David Byrne , Irish footballer*David Byrne , English footballer...
,
Chris FrantzChris Frantz is an American musician and record producer. He was the drummer for both Talking Heads and the Tom Tom Club.-Career:...
,
Tina WeymouthMartina Michèle "Tina" Weymouth is an American musician, best known as a founding member and bassist of the New Wave group Talking Heads and its side project Tom Tom Club .-Profile:Weymouth is of French heritage on her mother's side. Weymouth was a cheerleader in high school...
and
Jerry HarrisonJerry Harrison is an American songwriter, musician and producer...
. Auxiliary musicians also regularly made appearances in concert and on the group's albums.
The New Wave style of Talking Heads combined elements of
punkPunk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
,
art rockArt rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom in the 1960s, with influences from art, avant-garde, and classical music. The first usage of the term, according to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, was in 1968. Influenced by the work of The Beatles, most notably their Sgt...
, avant-garde,
popPop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
,
funkFunk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
,
world musicWorld music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
, and
AmericanaAmericana is an amalgam of roots musics formed by the confluence of the shared and varied traditions that make up the American musical ethos; specifically those sounds that are merged from folk, country, blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll and other external influential styles...
. Frontman and songwriter David Byrne contributed whimsical, esoteric lyrics to the band's songs, and emphasized their showmanship through various multimedia projects and performances.