Inexplicably I haven't got Sweetheart of the Rodeo so we move right on to Ballad of Easy Rider (1969). It's a mixed bag of an album this, with some wonderful stuff (the title song is lovely, its cynically added string section actually working beautifully) and some disastrous ('Jack Tarr the Sailor'). Partly the reason is that the vast majority of the material on Ballad of Easy Rider is composed of cover versions from wide and varied sources. McGuinn had long been vocal about his desire to record an overview of 20th century American music, and when that hadn't happened for Sweetheart of the Rodeo he clearly thought he'd have another go on Ballad of Easy Rider. Also, apparently, he was distracted by an attempt to write songs for a radical hippy rewrite of Ibsen's Peer Gynt. I shit you not. Can you imagine? I wish it was the sixties now, because although almost every single idea that anyone ever had in the sixties was abject rubbish, at least they were having them, trying stuff out, unafraid to look absurd. Anyway, Ballad of Easy Rider is a laid back album, and you almost feel as if the conflicts in the studio had left them all bored of fighting and they just got on with knocking an album out without hassle and as a result the album is a relatively gentle listen throughout. In fact, it's really quite charming and although in no way the Byrds' best, it's still a lovely record. In some ways more peculiar still was next album, the accidentally named (Untitled) (1970). After a solid year of touring the band felt the time was right to release an official live album, but they also had a number of new songs that they wanted to showcase (many from the defunct Peer Gynt effort) and the unusual answer was to release a double album, half live, half new studio recordings. Of the live album there are some interesting interpretations - not least the 16 minute version of 'Eight Miles High' which takes up the whole of side 2 of the album. There are also jaunty outings for 'Mr Spaceman' and 'So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star', but on the whole the live stuff is interesting rather than particularly good. The studio album is really great though, kicking off with the lovely 'Chestnut Mare' (although McGuinn's suggestion that a horse might be "just like a wife" is concerning - is that what happens in Peer Gynt??), and there's a respectful cover of Little Feat's fabulous 'Truck Stop Girl'. In some ways the studio album of (Untitled) is more of a template for the 90's version of indie Americana than any of the Byrds earlier albums, having a downbeat atmosphere and a nascent whiff of the dysfunctional that would make Big Star's Third/Sister Lovers so affecting. It's a divisive record, many critics absolutely hate it, but I think they're missing something important in this album, possibly because of the inclusion of the live album and the belief that it doesn't fit with what they wanted the Byrds to do instead.
Finally for the Byrds we take a step back for the 1980 compilation of the bands complete 7" A and B-sides, Complete Singles 1965-1967. Unsurprisingly everything on this is pure gold, there's not a dud moment to be found and there's no greater proof, not only of the greatness of the band but also of their extraordinary influence over rock music since, than the contents of this record. Every single song here sounds like a template, even when they're cover versions. 'I Knew I'd Want You', 'All I Really Want To Do', 'Feel a Whole Lot Better', 'Eight Miles High', 'What's Happening?!?!', it's all fantastic stuff.
After the creative success of Remain in Light, Talking Heads' David Byrne was approached to write music for a new piece of choreography by Twyla Tharp entitled The Catherine Wheel (1981). The music that he wrote sounds like a more spacious version of the kind of music he was creating for the Talking Heads on Fear of Music and Remain in Light, all jittery, tinny guitar stabs and flowing, elastic basslines, and indeed a substantial number of the pieces on The Catherine Wheel are full songs rather than instrumental pieces for dance. 1981 was a busy year for Byrne, releasing his collaboration with Brian Eno and overseeing the release of a Talking Heads double live album, together with this work and although spreading himself so thinly should have meant a dip in quality, if anything the drive to get all this stuff out seems to have spurred him on to more and more ingenious levels of creativity. The Catherine Wheel can occasionally feel as though its drifting but for the most part its forceful, energetic and completely engaging, and wouldn't feel particularly out of place if listened to amongst Talking Heads albums of the time.
Skipping forward two decades, when I heard that Byrne was releasing a double concept album which was a collaboration with Fatboy Slim about the life of Imelda Marcos I naturally assumed it was a good joke. However, Here Lies Love (2010) is in fact a double concept album which is a collaboration with Fatboy Slim about the life of Imelda Marcos. As far as the concept goes it's priceless, there's something about cultural, economic and political experience as lived through fundamentally opposite lives (Marcos and her nanny Estrella Campus) but to be honest it's hard to really make out what he's on about. As far as the music goes it's a real hotch-potch of Latinate rhythms, dance beats and every female guest vocalist he could get his hands on. So we have Florence Welch, Sia, Allison Moorer, Shara Worden, St. Vincent, Tori Amos, Martha Wainwright, Nellie McKay, Cyndi Lauper, Roisin Murphy, Camille, Kate Pierson, Alice Russell, Santigold, Natalie Merchant, Candie Payne, and more (and an exception for the chaps with a nice show by Steve Earle), all singing in the character of either Marcos or the nanny. The whole thing plays and sounds a little bit like a Stephin Merritt vanity project although Byrne's affinity for world music and particularly South American music is the foundation on which this is all built. Some of the songs are great dance numbers, some are relatively charming slowies, but you really have to like the individual vocalist and be able to approach the whole thing with a bit of ironic humour, otherwise you won't know what the hell it is that you're listening to.
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