Look into the Eyeball, released in 2001 through Luaka Bop & Virgin Records, is the fifth solo album and sixth studio album overall by Scottish-American Alternative Rock musician David Byrne. As stated on his website
in the leadup to the album's release, it was born out of a desire to mix the artsy emotion of orchestral music with the catchy danceability of mainstream pop, hoping "to move people to dance and cry at the same time."
As a result, the album moves away from the Trip Hop stylings of Feelings before it and ramps up the use of acoustic and orchestral arrangements, moving into a Baroque Pop approach (which would become particularly prominent on Grown Backwards three years later) and marking the start of Byrne's new art pop sound, which he would stick with under varying permutations for the remainder of his career. Working with his greatest volume of guest musicians since Uh-Oh nearly a decade prior, the songs were pieced together over the course of two years, starting work in Andalusia, Spain before being further fleshed out in New York.
In essence, the album carried over the international and improvisational development style of Talking Heads' final album, Naked, though trading out the ensemble-wide jam sessions with more economical digital samplers; Byrne would only bring in the guest musicians after he'd pinned down his ideas. Nevertheless, the parallels that were present were fitting, as Byrne's former band was seeing renewed media attention during the dawn of the 21st century. Stop Making Sense had seen a high-profile re-release for its 15th anniversary in 1999, and the band had regrouped to re-promote the film. Byrne was still on tense terms with his bandmates, but the public revisiting of the band's glory days ended up placing a new sense of attention on not just Talking Heads, but also Byrne himself. This renewed interest would be exemplified by Microsoft's decision to license leadoff single "Like Humans Do" as a sample track for Windows Media Player in their new operating system, Windows XP.
On a more trivial note, the album also marks Byrne's final release for his longtime vanity label Luaka Bop, created all the way back in 1988; having shifted distributors over the years from Sire Records to Warner (Bros.) Records to Virgin Records, Byrne found himself exhausted trying to both manage the label and continue his career as a musician. He would step down from Luaka Bop shortly after the album's release, signing onto Nonesuch Records for his following work.
Look into the Eyeball was supported by two singles: "Like Humans Do" and "U.B. Jesus".
Tracklist:
- "U.B. Jesus" (3:49)
- "The Revolution" (2:15)
- "The Great Intoxication" (2:36)
- "Like Humans Do" (3:32)
- "Broken Things" (4:29)
- "The Accident" (2:34)
- "Desconocido Soy" (2:38)
- "Neighborhood" (4:32)
- "Smile" (3:33)
- "The Moment of Conception" (2:55)
- "Walk on Water" (3:26)
- "Everyone's in Love with You" (2:27)
I'm troping in, I'm troping out:
- Album Title Drop: The line "look into the eyeball of your boyfriend" appears in "The Great Intoxication".
- Alliterative Title: "Walk on Water".
- Animated Music Video: "The Great Intoxication" received one of these, distributed solely online and based on a live recording of the song. It's about as representative of what Web Animation was like at the start of the 2000's as it could get.
- Baroque Pop: The album's heavy use of orchestral embellishments brings it into this territory, presaging the more thorough exploration of the style on Grown Backwards.
- Bilingual Bonus: "Desconocido Soy" translates to "I am unknown," tying in with the Immediate Self-Contradiction-ridden lyrics.
- Bowdlerise: The radio edit of "Like Humans Do" (also the version used in Windows XP) replaces the line "I never watch TV except when I'm stoned" with "we eat off our plates and kiss with our tongues."
- Break Up Song: "The Accident", where the titular car crash is just a metaphor for the hurt feelings in the wake of a relationship's end.
- Changed for the Video: The music video for "The Great Intoxication" uses a live performance of the song, featuring an extended orchestral intro and outro and more muted beats.
- Design Student's Orgasm: The jewel case comes in a clear plastic slipcase with a hatched pattern printed on it. At the same time, each page of the album art has a pair of images interlaced between one another. Consequently, sliding the slipcase on and off hides alternating pairs of lines, allowing the images to animate. For instance, Byrne's front portrait blinks, a cicada flaps its wings, and a coffee cup cracks open.
- Face on the Cover: An interlaced pair of mugshots, giving the illusion of Byrne's face blinking when the hatched slipcase is slid on and off.
- Fading into the Next Song: "U.B. Jesus" segues into "The Revolution". Likewise, "The Great Intoxication" hard-cuts into "Like Humans Do".
- Franchise Codifier: After several decades of making music, the album set the template for all of Byrne's following ones. The eclectic art pop sound that mixed electronic and orchestral elements became the basis for subsequent releases in varying permutations, being mixed with Byrne's long-established lyrical eccentricity to craft a niche that he would spend the rest of the 21st century leaning into.
- Genre Roulette: Despite its clear-cut orchestral art pop core, the album alternates between a number of different permutations, between Gospel Music ("U.B. Jesus"), Baroque Pop ("The Revolution", "The Accident", "Smile"), Philadelphia soul ("Neighborhood"), Latin pop ("Desconocido Soy"), etc.
- Gratuitous Spanish: "Desconocido Soy" is sung entirely in Spanish.
- Humans Through Alien Eyes: "Like Humans Do" is narrated by a Martian observing and commenting on western society. Appropriately, most of the song features the Martian describing how odd seemingly normal aspects of everyday life actually are.
- Immediate Self-Contradiction: "Desconocido Soy" revolves entirely around listing a number of self-contradictory statements, such as "I'm always changing; I've always been this way," "I'm heartbreak; I'm a heart," "I hang over you; I'm at the bottom of the sea," and "I'm a purebreed; and a dirty mutt."
- Lyrical Dissonance: "Like Humans Do" combines upbeat orchestral pop with lyrics about human dysfunction.
- Never My Fault: One verse in "The Moment of Conception":Blame my school, and blame my parents
and the genes that I inherit.
Blame it on my older sister
for showing me her dirty pictures.
Blame the TV and the movies,
blame the judges and the juries. - New Sound Album: Orchestral-infused art pop, directly presaging Byrne's later work.
- One-Word Title: "Neighborhood" and "Smile".
- Special Guest:
- Greg Cohen of the experimental jazz quartet Masada provides upright bass parts throughout the album.
- Red Hot Chili Peppers touring percussionist Mauro Refosco plays percussion throughout the album.
- Brazilian jazz star Vinicius Cantuária plays percussion on "The Great Intoxication".
- Philadelphia soul pioneer Thom Bell provides arrangements for "Like Humans Do" and plays electric piano on "Neighborhood".
- Birch Johnson of The Blues Brothers plays trombone on "Broken Things".
- Rubén Isaac Albarrán Ortega of Mexican Alternative Rock group Café Tacuba duets with Byrne on "Desconocido Soy"; Ortega is credited as "Nrü", one of many characters he plays on stage.
- Imani Coppola sings backing vocals on "Everyone's in Love with You".
- Vocal Tag Team: "Desconocido Soy" is a duet between Byrne and Rubén Isaac Albarrán Ortega of Café Tacuba.
- World's Most Beautiful Woman: The "you" in "Everyone's in Love with You" is stated to be female, and fitting the title of the song, everyone she meets ends up being attracted to her thanks to her good looks and mannerisms.
- The X of Y: "The Moment of Conception".
