Psycho Killer – Talking Heads (1977)

Description

Additional information about this, Talking Heads vinyl art.

Talking Heads – The Artist/s

Talking Heads were an American rock band formed in New York City in 1975.[2] It consisted of vocalist-guitarist David Byrne, drummer Chris Frantz, bassist Tina Weymouth, and guitarist-keyboardist Jerry Harrison. Described as “one of the most critically acclaimed groups of the ’80s,” Talking Heads helped to pioneer new wave music by combining elements of punk, art rock, funk, and world music with “an anxious yet clean-cut image”. Talking Heads reached their commercial peak in 1983 with the U.S. Top 10 hit “Burning Down the House” from the album Speaking in Tongues. In 1984, they released the concert film Stop Making Sense, which was directed by Jonathan Demme. For these performances, they were joined by Worrell, guitarist Alex Weir, percussionist Steve Scales, and singers Lynn Mabry and Ednah Holt. In 1985, Talking Heads released their best-selling album, Little Creatures. They produced a soundtrack album for Byrne’s film True Stories (1986), and released their final album, the worldbeat-influenced Naked (1988), before disbanding in 1991. Without Byrne, the other band members performed under the name Shrunken Heads, and released an album, No Talking, Just Head, as the Heads in 1996, featuring various singers in place of Byrne. In 2002, Talking Heads were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Four of their albums appeared on Rolling Stone’s 2003 list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time”, and three of their songs—”Psycho Killer”, “Life During Wartime”, and “Once in a Lifetime”—were included among the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll.

Psycho Killer – The Song

“Psycho Killer” is a song by American rock band Talking Heads, released on their debut studio album Talking Heads: 77 (1977). The band’s “signature debut hit” features lyrics that seem to represent the thoughts of a serial killer. Originally written and performed as a ballad, “Psycho Killer” became what AllMusic calls a “deceptively funky new wave/no wave song” with “an insistent rhythm, and one of the most memorable, driving basslines in rock & roll.” When it was finally completed and released as a single in December 1977, “Psycho Killer” became instantly associated in popular culture with the contemporaneous Son of Sam serial killings (July 1976 – July 1977). Although the band always insisted that the song had no inspiration from the notorious events, the single’s release date was “eerily timely” and marked by a “macabre synchronicity”.

Jack The Ripper – The Shape

This record has been modelled into the shape of the infamous murderer, Jack The Ripper. Jack the Ripper was an unidentified serial killer who was active in and around the impoverished Whitechapel district of London, England, in 1888. In both criminal case files and the contemporaneous journalistic accounts, the killer was also called the Whitechapel Murderer and Leather Apron. Attacks ascribed to Jack the Ripper typically involved women working as prostitutes who lived in the slums of the East End of London. Their throats were cut prior to abdominal mutilations. The removal of internal organs from at least three of the victims led to speculation that their killer had some anatomical or surgical knowledge. Rumours that the murders were connected intensified in September and October 1888, and numerous letters were received by media outlets and Scotland Yard from people purporting to be the murderer.

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