Stiil Life Talking

While Brazilian music had captured Pat Metheny's attention since the '70s, he placed an especially strong emphasis on Brazilian elements in the late '80s. A master of uniting seemingly disparate elements as a cohesive whole, the imaginative guitarist effectively combines Brazilian-influenced harmonies and rhythm with jazz, folk, and pop elements on "So May It Secretly Begin," "Third Wind," "Minuano (Six Eight)," and other celebrated gems included on Still Life (Talking). The Brazilian leanings are put aside on one of Metheny's most unique offerings ever, "Last Train Home," which boasts a charming Western theme that brings to mind a peaceful journey across the Arizona desert.

Released four years after the Talking Heads called it a day with 1988's Naked, Popular Favorites provides a thorough overview of one of the most important American bands of the '80s. From tightly wound early efforts such as "Psycho Killer" and "Don't Worry About the Government" to the seriously funky likes of "I Zimbra" and "Burning Down the House," David Byrne, Jerry Harrison, Tina Weymouth, and Chris Franz grew as musicians as they stretched the original concepts of the unit to the breaking point. Over the course of two discs and 32 selections, the anthology chronicles the Heads' development from Bowery art punks (albeit of the most civil stripe) to unlikely arena stars. A smattering of unreleased tracks and notes from the original quartet nicely flesh out the retrospective.

Rhino's – or, more accurately, Sire/Warner/Rhino's – Best of Talking Heads follows 2003's box set Once in a Lifetime by a year, and it features the same remastering from that set. It also shares part of a title with the 1992 U.K. compilation The Best of Talking Heads: Once in a Lifetime, which was released the same year as the American double-disc overview Popular Favorites: Sand in the Vaseline. Given the similar titles, similar release dates, and similar track listings, it's easy to get confused at first, but all you need to know is that if you're looking for a comprehensive collection, get the Rhino box, and if you want a disc of hits, get this single-disc Rhino collection…

Talking Heads' 30th anniversary is commemorated in typically artful style here, sonically upgrading their eight, era-defining albums via bonus-packed Dual Discs and encasing them in a molded white plastic box intricately embossed with the band's song titles. Each disc contains complete album tracks and bonus cuts remastered in High Resolution Stereo on its CD side, while the DVD programming on the flip offers up the audio tracks in expansive new 5.1 Surround Sound mixes, with all of the sonic upgrading personally supervised by Jerry Harrison. Those long overdue audio improvements alone would make it an attractive set, but fans of the band will find its wealth of bonus music (various B-sides and previously unreleased outtakes) and video (including a number of rare live clips seeing their first release here) supplements equally intriguing.