lyrically, david byrne is on top paranoid form; his chracters see the banal aspects of everyday life; paper, guitars, pets, even air, as either crushingly important or terribly threatening. there is also a strong feeling of claustrophobia permeating the album, such as the endless descriptions of disorientation is 'life during wartime' and the cry of 'i'm stuck here in this seat' in 'memories can't wait'.

this album is talking heads at the height of their creativity; fulfilling the promise of their early material but avoiding the later works' occasional lack of focus.

Claustrophobicmachinemusic
This album sounds like Brian Eno's vision of what Talking Heads should sound like - it's funky, superficially danceable and catchy, but simultaneous with those elements is a darkness that hadn't really been seen in their music before (well, come to think of it, they did have a song called 'Psycho Killer', but still...). Take Life During Wartime, for instance: the band is at its funkiest with a great synth riff and solid, pumping drums, and over the top you have David Byrne yelling out deeply menacing lyrics that on at least one interpretation are from the point of view of a terrorist.
Courtesy of Brian Eno, these dark sentiments are echoed by the production - the band is so heavily treated that the music sounds like it's coming straight out of the heart of a machine; Eno was of course recording with the Heads around the same time he was working on the Berlin trilogy with David Bowie, and it shows. The darkness gets most intense with the closing Drugs, based around a sparse, pulsating beat that sounds like slow death. At the end, an atonal, frightening guitar solo bursts out of the gloom, ending the album in a state of total madness.
Amongst all this alienation, however, lies some of Byrne's most affecting work. I'm thinking in particular of Heaven, a song which imagines the afterlife to be a state of unending repetitive bliss rather like that depicted in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World - if indeed Byrne is really talking about the afterlife, the song being equally applicable to many utopian visions of how this world could be shaped. The chorus, the best one he ever wrote, simply runs 'Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens'.
A year later, in 1980, Talking Heads would release Remain In Light, embracing African rhythms with great success (the experiment had already started on this album with the Dadaist I Zimbra). Although that album is possibly the one I recommend you start with, this is a worthy addition to any music collection.

An Underrated Materpiece
I feel that, although many think Remain in Light is Talking Heads' best, that this distinction clearly bleongs to the brilliantly paranoid Fear of Music. It starts off with King Crimson's Robert Fripp joining the band African tinged funk of "I Zimbra". Next comes "Mind", a catchy little song with a cool guitar line and some amazing lyrics. "Paper" is a funky number with lyrics about, you guessed it, paper. Only Talking Heads could pull off a song like this. "Life During Wartime" is probably the classic off of this album if you haven't heard it you probably shouldn't be here. Next is "Cities" which is one of the catchiest songs I've heard in my life. It's also neck and neck with "Life During Wartime" as my favorite song on this album. "Memories Can't Wait" has a really cool atmosphere and features a paranoid and crazy chorus that only David Byrne could deliver. Next is "Air", a new wavey song that is a classic paranoid David Byrne rant about pollution. "Heaven" is also definitly up there with "Cities" and "Life During Wartime" as my favorites. If I was a better writer I would try to describe the beauty of this song, but I can't so I won't. Then comes "Animals", its funny that there is a song with this title on this album because I always thought this album was to Talking Heads as Animals was to Pink Floyd, thier underrated masterpiece. Anyways "Animals" is a hilarious and paranoid song that seems to be a protest song against animals. Again only David Byrne could pull this off and make it song cool. "Electric Guitar" is the only weak song on here but that is complety made up for by the next song. "Drugs" is an awesome and atpmospheric song about drugs. Brian Eno plays a huge role in elevating this song.

I loved this album and (if your a Talking Heads fan) so will you (plays Reading Rainbow segue).

Fear of Music proves George Clinton was right
Fear is the dominant mood here, and I recall how hearing Life During Wartime seemed to fit perfectly to reading Gravity's Rainbow back when this record was released. On other tracks, Cities explores the ups and downs of dispossession, Mind probes the profound problems of disagreement, the round-about chanting of Animals surrounds the listener within a forest, and Drugs has brilliant insights on the social effects of altered states. But nothing in the TH ouvre expresses existential ambivalence more beautifully than Heaven, where nothing ever happens.

Aside form the stunning songs, this album offers the most enduring sonic structures that TH would offer until Little Creatures, since Remain in Light was even gloomier and over-edited and Speaking in Tongues is marred by loopy synthesizer dance riffs that were nearly obsolete before they were recorded. This rare mix of profound lyrical observation over a panorama of hard-rock groove-scapes perfectly follows the famous George Clinton prescription: free your mind and... (you know the rest)

Talking Heads is on a pinnacle with Fear of Music, and thats a very high position in rock history.

essential part of a comprehensive collection of great rock
A perfect album. I can say no more.
This disc represents the bridge between Talking Heads' first two herky-jerkier albums and the next two funky ones. Fear of Music is more than just a bridge, though. It's the water under the bridge, the air, the animals, the cities the river flows through, and the heaven on top of it all: "...a place where nothing ever happens." Plenty happens here, however. The CD starts out with its feet off the ground and both arms in the air: "I Zimbra" is all-out celebration. The rest of the songs are pretty much exercises in simplicity: one-word titles with music to match. (Witness the lightness of "Air," the trippiness of "Drugs," the "ooga"-ness of "Animals.") David Byrne's artful naiveté ("Hold the paper up to the light/Some rays pass right through"), coupled with the whole band's musical playfulness (for example, the tuba on "Electric Guitar"), makes for fun fun fun. --Dan Leone