A decision was then taken to rehearse in drummer Chris Frantz and bassist Tina Weymouth's loft in Long Island City, Queens, where the band members had played while unsigned in the mid-1970s.

[8] On April 22 and May 6, 1979, a sound engineering crew in a Record Plant van parked outside Frantz's and Weymouth's apartment building and ran cables through their loft window.

[8] Album opener "I Zimbra" is influenced by Afrobeat and disco, and includes guitar work by Robert Fripp and background chanting from assistant recording engineer Julie Last.

[8] In "Life During Wartime", Byrne casts himself an "unheroic urban guerrilla", who renounced parties, survived on basic supplies like peanut butter, and heard rumors about weapons shipments and impromptu graveyards.

It is completely black and embossed with a pattern that resembles the appearance and texture of tread plate metal flooring, reflecting the album's urban subject matter.

[9] After completing Fear of Music, Talking Heads embarked on their first Pacific region tour in June 1979 and played concerts in New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and Hawaii.

"[18] The band shared the headliner slots with Van Morrison and the Chieftains at the Edinburgh Festival in September, and embarked on a promotional European tour until the end of the year.

Jon Pareles, writing in Rolling Stone, was impressed with its "unswerving rhythms" and Byrne's lyrical evocations; he concluded, "Fear of Music is often deliberately, brilliantly disorienting.

"[29] John Rockwell of The New York Times suggested that the record was not a conventional rock release,[30] while Stephanie Pleet of the Daily Collegian commented that it showed a positive progression in Talking Heads' musical style.

[32] Richard Cromelin of the Los Angeles Times was impressed with Byrne's "awesome vocal performance" and its nuances and called Fear of Music "a quantum leap" for the band.

"[34] In retrospective reviews, AllMusic's William Ruhlmann felt that Fear of Music was "an uneven, transitional album", but nonetheless stated that it includes songs that match the quality of the band's best works.

[35] In The Rough Guide to Rock published the same year, Andy Smith concluded that the album is a strong candidate for the best LP of the 1970s because it is "bristling with hooks, riffs and killer lines".

[42] It placed fourth in the 1979 Pazz & Jop critics' poll run by The Village Voice, which aggregates the votes of hundreds of prominent reviewers.

[48] All tracks are written by David Byrne, except where notedThose involved in the making of Fear of Music were:[10][49] Talking Heads Additional musicians The birds on "Drugs" were recorded at Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, Brisbane, Australia