![]() David Byrne is back in his gray-suited groove with “American Utopia” on Broadway. ![]() But then again, the art-rocker has never played by the rules. “American Utopia” - a theatrical, quasi-concert production that incorporates music, interpretive dance and Byrne’s stage banter, which ranges from comical to topical - won a special Tony last month because it defied categorization by not fitting into the musical or play divisions. “I think she’s been to the show about eight times!” In fact, the audience included one famous friend who has become a bit of an “American Utopia” groupie: “Amy Schumer came to the opening,” said Byrne. “You could see all these people that we knew, so it was really like playing for your friends, which meant I had to try not to look at them. “I would look out and I’d go, ‘Oh, there’s so and so’s family!’ ” the 69-year-old music icon told The Post. ‘David Byrne’s American Utopia’ film heads to HBO with director Spike Leeįor David Byrne, the Broadway reopening of “American Utopia” last Sunday - 24 months after his now Tony-winning show first opened in 2019 - was a “friends and family” affair. Talking Heads drummer dishes on ‘cold’ David Byrne in new memoir What fast food chain are you based on your zodiac sign? ![]() American Utopia is an album of beautiful and witty surfaces stretched over a sea of troubled waters, and if Byrne is rarely inclined to give direct answers to the questions he asks, it's obvious this isn't a joke, it's an ambitious work from an important American artist.‘Here Lies Love’ review: David Byrne musical makes Broadway a nightclub ![]() In concept, American Utopia bears faint resemblance to the cheerfully odd average Americans who populated Talking Heads' 1986 album True Stories (and Byrne's accompanying feature film), but this album's wit is more pointed, the tone is cooler and less secure, and the cumulative effect less joyous and a bit more puzzled about what awaits us with the next dawn. The final product is a sonic crazy quilt that's rich and evocative, by turns ominous and seductive, and the stylistic shape-shifting that dominates these tracks suits the many moods of Byrne's characters very well indeed. (Animals, too - a variety of critters pop up in "Every Day Is a Miracle," and "Dog's Mind" imagines how our canine friends view the world.) Not everything in Byrne's Bizarro World America is a good time, especially on "Gasoline and Dirty Sheets" and "This Is That." But much of this album portrays folks who are both dazzled and overwhelmed by the abundant possibilities presented in "It's Not Dark Up Here," "Everybody's Coming to My House," and "I Dance Like This." American Utopia began as a series of rhythm tracks created by Brian Eno, which Byrne then fashioned into songs, with a variety of other collaborators reshaping the results, including co-producers Rodaidh McDonald and Patrick Dillett and musicians Daniel Lopatin, Thomas Bartlett, and Joey Waronker. At a time when America has been thrown into a state of chaos - something Byrne witnessed and creatively reacted to as an artist during the Reagan era - here he imagines what appears to be an alternate version of the United States and the people who live in it. "Is this meant ironically? Is it a joke? Do I mean this seriously? In what way?" David Byrne seems to be simultaneously inviting and acknowledging some likely reactions to his 2018 album, American Utopia, in his own liner notes.
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