about the album by Luaka Bop.Uh-Oh, released in 1992 through Luaka Bop, Sire Records, and Warner (Bros.) Records, is the second solo album and third studio album overall by Scottish-American Alternative Rock musician David Byrne. His first album released after the breakup of Talking Heads just three months prior, the record acts as a loose sequel to the band's eighth and final album, 1988's Naked. Appropriately, the album is a similar mix of rock and Afro-Latin funk. However, it also distinguishes itself by incorporating elements of Big Band music and the World Music style of Byrne's previous solo album, 1989's Rei Momo. Thus, Uh-Oh manages to both parallel Naked and offer its own distinct take on the base elements.
Fitting this shakeup, the album shifts producers from Steve Lillywhite to Nick Launay. Like Lillywhite, Launay was well-known for his work with the Post-Punk and Alternative Rock movements, co-engineering Kate Bush's The Dreaming and producing albums for the likes of Public Image Ltd., Killing Joke, Midnight Oil, and INXS. Launay would also produce the three outtakes that Talking Heads finished for the retrospective compilation Sand in the Vaseline: Popular Favorites— "Gangster of Love", "Popsicle", and "Lifetime Piling Up". As a result, those songs would feature a similar sound to this album, effectively making Uh-Oh a plausible approximation of what a ninth Talking Heads album would've sounded like.
No longer tied to his old band, Byrne decided to go to greater lengths than before with promoting this record. Not only did he produce elaborate music videos for each of the album's singles— all of which took great lengths to focus on him as an independent figure, no band attached— but he also undertook his first major tour since Talking Heads' Speaking in Tongues tour in 1983. Similarly, a Direct to Video Concert Film from this tour, Between the Teeth — Live, was filmed and released in 1993, acting as an attempted Spiritual Successor to Stop Making Sense in its minimalist visuals while also teasing forthcoming songs from his self-titled album the following year.
Uh-Oh was supported by three singles: "Hanging Upside Down", "She's Mad", and "Girls On My Mind".
Tracklist:
- "Now I'm Your Mom" (4:43)
- "Girls On My Mind" (3:52)
- "Something Ain't Right" (3:37)
- "She's Mad" (5:20)
- "Hanging Upside Down" (4:31)
- "A Walk in the Dark" (4:21)
- "Twistin' in the Wind" (4:14)
- "The Cowboy Mambo (Hey Lookit Me Now)" (3:37)
- "Monkey Man" (4:07)
- "A Million Miles Away" (4:24)
- "Tiny Town" (5:03)
- "Somebody" (4:59)
Anyone can see we're out of tropes:
- Alliterative Name: "Tiny Town"
- all lowercase letters: The logotype for the album is written in simple lowercase, sans-serf font, providing a visual contrast with the hand-drawn blackletter for Byrne's name up top.
- Anti-Love Song: "She's Mad" describes a highly dysfunctional relationship between a man and woman who've both fallen off the deep end. Byrne himself described the song as "three minutes of domestic hell with a little bit of bliss thrown in."
- Bring My Brown Pants: "A Walk in the Dark":Jesus, Mary and the Holy Ghost
Took one look and said, "Hey, we're lost!"
"How the hell do we get out a here?"
They shit their pants, they got so scared - Butterfly of Transformation: In "Now I'm Your Mom", the narrator, a post-op transgender woman, compares her transition to the process of a caterpillar metamorphosing into a butterfly.
- Color Motifs: Tying in with Byrne's longtime association with red, the back cover and rear spine have a photo of a deep red sunset sky, cassette copies sport a translucent red shell, and the first 100,000 CD copies of the album came with a translucent red tray (later copies use the traditional dark gray). Additionally, the US promo CD for "She's Mad" features a translucent red jewel case and a red disc label.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Done literally with "A Walk in the Dark", where the narrator describes nighttime darkness as revelatory and intellectually stimulating.
- Deranged Animation: The CGI in the music video for "She's Mad" is highly chaotic, tying in with the lyrics in highly exaggerated and surreal ways.
- Design Student's Orgasm: Most of the album cover is an elaborate painting of angels in heaven surrounding the throne of God... which makes for an effective contrast with the crude cartoon dog on the throne.
- Fading into the Next Song: The slowdown and crowd chatter at the end of "She's Mad" hard cut directly into the start of "Hanging Upside Down".
- Groin Attack: "Twistin' in the Wind" mentions how the folks who beat up Harry "kicked him in the balls."
- Idiosyncratic Cover Art: Uh-Oh carries over Naked's theme of a "class meets kitsch" painting on the front cover and a scenery photograph on the back, tying in with the two albums' shared sound and style.
- Loss of Identity: "Somebody"Somebody, somebody takes away our names.
Somebody, somebody tell me who I am. - Loveable Sex Maniac: The narrator of "Girls On My Mind" is depicted as this: he, as the song title implies, is always thinking about beautiful women, but the song depicts this as nothing more than an amusing quirk and sets his boastful descriptions of it to upbeat music.
- Lyrical Dissonance: Byrne describes "Twistin' in the Wind" as "a howl of anger with a dance beat." Similarly, "Monkey Man" and "Somebody" respectively offset themes of societal dysfunction and racism with upbeat Latin dance melodies and arrangements.
- Misery Builds Character: "The Cowboy Mambo (Hey Lookit Me Now):Green grass grows around the backyard shithouse,
and that is where the sweetest flowers bloom.
We're all flowers growing in God's garden,
and that is why he spreads the shit around. - Mood Whiplash: "She's Mad" intentionally contrasts aggressively-delivered verses and an anguished bridge with a jaunty chorus and serene-sounding outro. In Luaka Bop's media information kit on the album, Byrne described the track as "three minutes of domestic hell with a little bit of bliss thrown in."
- New Sound Album: Compared to the dense soundscapes on Talking Heads' last album and the World Music approach of Rei Momo, Uh-Oh orients Byrne's Afro-Latin sound towards a more accessible mix of Alternative Rock and Big Band. Nick Launay would use this same direction for the finished outtakes on Talking Heads' later-released compilation Sand in the Vaseline: Popular Favorites.
- Non-Appearing Title: Played with in the case of "The Cowboy Mambo (Hey Lookit Me Now)"; the main title doesn't appear in the song lyrics, but the subtitle does.
- Performance Video: "Hanging Upside Down" features Byrne singing the song in various locations in a mall, intercut with quick scenes of odd events occurring there.
- Protest Song: According to Byrne, "Somebody" was intended as a commentary on racism that examines its effects on a nonwhite woman.
- Rage Against the Heavens: Byrne describes "Something Ain't Right" as an extended rant against God, culminating in a vow to "tear [His] playhouse down."
- Shout-Out: "A Walk in the Dark" briefly quotes the opening lines of the Christmas carol "Silent Night".
- Surreal Music Video: "She's Mad", in which Byrne is manipulated in very strange and cartoonish ways with CGI.
- Take That!: The original CD release came with a sticker slapped onto the longboxnote with the headline THIS IS GARBAGE, followed by a blurb decrying how wasteful longboxes were (since most people just threw them out after purchase) and urging buyers to complain about it to retailers.
- Trans Tribulations: "Now I'm Your Mom" is narrated by a post-op trans woman attempting to explain her transition to her kids, fearing the possibility of them not understanding the situation.
- Visual Pun:
- The cover art is a painting of Heaven... with a dog sitting on the throne instead of God.
- One scene in the "She's Mad" video features Byrne plastered onto the front of every house in a neighborhood. He's Byrne-ing down the house.
- Wall of Text: The tracklist on the back cover is written in large lettering and takes up almost the entire image.
- Would Hurt a Child: Verse four of "Twistin' in the Wind" describes a bunch of unspecified street folks beating up a fourteen-year-old boy in an over-the-top manner.
