Label: Nonesuch
Reissued 8/11/2023, Originally released 2010
David Byrne & Fatboy Slim's acclaimed 2010 album Here Lies Love receives it's first-ever vinyl release to coincide with a new production opening on Broadway this summer. Here Lies Love is a double-disc song cycle - improbably poignant, decidedly surreal, surprisingly thought provoking - about the rise and fall of the Philippines' notorious Imelda Marcos. It was conceived by David Byrne; composed by Byrne and DJ/recording artist Fatboy Slim, AKA Norman Cook; and performed by a dream cast drawn from the worlds of indie rock, alt country, R&B and pop. Byrne's taste in collaborators is as imaginative as it is impeccable, including Cyndi Lauper (who recounts, to lighthearted disco beats, Imelda's courtship with Ferdinand Marcos), Steve Earle (as the power-hungry Ferdinand), Dap-Kings vocalist Sharon Jones (recalling Imelda's introduction into New York society) and Natalie Merchant (as spurned Imelda confidante Estrella, anticipating the onset of martial law). Along with vocals turns from such stars as Tori Amosand the B-52's Kate Pierson, Byrne works with rising indie rockers St. Vincent and My Brightest Diamond; New York chanteuses Nellie McKayand, Martha Wainwright; and dance-music divas Róisín Murphy and Santigold. Byrne himself appears as the voice of imperialistic America on 'American Troglodyte', a send-up that wouldn't have seemed out of places in Talking Heads' True Stories.
Track listing:
- Here Lies Love
- Every Drop Of Rain
- You'll Be Taken Care Of
- The Rose Of Tacloban
- How Are You?
- A Perfect Hand
- Eleven Days
- When She Passed By
- Walk Like A Woman
- Don't You Agree?
- Pretty Face
- Ladies In Blue
- Dancing Together
- Men Will Do Anything
- The Whole Man
- Never So Big
- Please Don't
- American Troglodyte
- Solano Avenue
- Order 1081
- Seven Years
- Why Don't You Love Me?