Happy 25th: David Byrne, DAVID BYRNE

25 years ago today, David Byrne released his self-titled album, which was his… Wait, which number solo album was DAVID BYRNE, anyway? Let’s see… MY LIFE IN THE BUSH OF GHOSTS doesn’t count, because that was a collaboration with Brian Eno, and we can’t count any of his theater scores or movie soundtracks, because those aren’t studio albums in the traditional sense, so THE CATHERINE WHEEL, THE LAST EMPEROR, and THE FOREST are out. So…this was his third album, wasn’t it?

Yeah, let’s go with that.

Produced by Byrne, Arto Lindsey, and Susan Rogers, DAVID BYRNE found the former Talking Heads frontman delivering a more sparse sound than he’d utilized on previous LPs while also taking a more personal tone with the songs.

“I’m writing from the heart, about my own experiences and feelings,” Byrne told Hot Press in 1994. “What the songs are saying is mostly from my point of view and not from a character’s point of view like so many of my earlier songs. What I want as a listener is something that’s real, that’s going to move me, that’s going to affect my life, that’s going to say something to me about how I live. So, that is what I think I should be doing with my own life.”

DAVID BYRNE received mixed reviews from critics, but Modern Rock radio took to the album immediately, turning the single “Angels” into a hit. If you’ve never seen the video, well, that seems like as good a way to wrap up as any!