Talking Heads

Proving you could rock despite having attended the Rhode Island School of Design, Talking Heads' innovative brand of downtown art-pop featured David Byrne's manic yelp, pointed lyrics about mundane subjects, and R&B-meets-Velvet Underground grooves, all without ever tipping over into pretension. The group began making twitchy pop in the punk era, but by the early-1980s the Heads had graduated to a dense, funky style incorporating a phalanx of additional musicians including Adrian Belew and P-Funk keyboardist Bernie Worrell. They made a slight return to their pop/rock roots before imploding at the end of the '80s, moving on to solo projects and production work.

• rock
• pop