After charting a steadily upward commercial trajectory with their first four albums, Talking Heads appeared poised for a breakthrough with their fifth LP, 'Speaking in Tongues.' And that's exactly what they achieved, selling a million records and scoring their first (as well as only) Top 10 single.
In a way, Talking Heads’ eighth and final album, ‘Naked,’ was a reaction to Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland,’ which introduced world music to mainstream audiences in 1986. Then again, Talking Heads got there before Simon, incorporating African rhythms into their songs way back in 1980’s landmark ‘Remain in Light.’ But after 1983’s ‘Speaking in Tongues,’ which featured similar world-music junctures, and the massive world tour that followed, the group began scaling back.
