Fear Of Music
by Talking Heads
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Talking Heads bestography
Fear Of Music is ranked 2nd best out of 19 albums by Talking Heads on BestEverAlbums.com.
The best album by Talking Heads is Remain In Light which is ranked number 25 in the list of all-time albums with a total rank score of 26,412.
(N.B. Bestographies include all albums by an artist (and their variations), but do not include albums ranked outside the top 100,000).
Listen to Fear Of Music on YouTube
Fear Of Music track list
The tracks on this album have an average rating of 84 out of 100 (all tracks have been rated).
Top-rated track as rated by BestEverAlbums.com members.
Fear Of Music rankings
Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings). Click to see how the rankings are calculated (Last updated: 2 hours ago)
| Year | Source | Chart | Rank | Rank Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 |  Kalos | Top 100 Music Albums of the 1970s | 28/100 | 15 |
| 2026 | rlang36 | Top 100 Greatest Music Albums | 63/100 | 37 |
| 2026 |  Patman360 | Top 100 Music Albums of 1979 | 14/100 | 4 |
| 2026 |  slatsheit | My top 101-201 (not a misprint) | 87/100 | - |
| 2026 |  dihansse | Top 68 Music Albums of 1979 | 1/68 | 5 |
| 2026 | Jantje | Top 100 Greatest Music Albums | 9/100 | 90 |
| 2026 | blueandthemoon | Top 100 Music Albums of the 1970s | 71/100 | 6 |
| 2026 |  neilgee | Top 100 Music Albums of 1979 | 13/100 | 4 |
| 2026 | BurndenAce | Top 100 Music Albums of the 1970s | 19/100 | 16 |
| 2026 |  jeremy9 | Top 36 Music Albums of 1979 | 17/36 | 3 |
| Total Charts: The total number of charts that this album has appeared in. | 878 | |||
| Total Rank Score: The total rank score. | 6,606 | |||
Fear Of Music collection
Showing latest 20 members who have this album in their collection | Show all 499 members
Fear Of Music ratings
Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AVwhere:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.
Showing latest 3 ratings for this album. | Show all 1,113 ratings for this album.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Album ratings | Avg. album rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ! | 09/13/2026 20:50 |  Superunknown | 294 | 71/100 |
| ! | 08/28/2026 04:55 | Proto | 4,309 | 33/100 |
| ! | 08/21/2026 14:37 | stangetzaway | 2,323 | 83/100 |
Rating metrics:
Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some albums can have several thousand ratings)
This album is rated in the top 1% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 83.5/100, a mean average of 82.9/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 83.6/100. The standard deviation for this album is 12.7.
Fear Of Music favourites
Showing latest 10 members who have added this album as a favourite | Show all 187 members
Fear Of Music forum mentions
BestEverAlbums 10 hours ago in Chart of the day (#5449): By junodog4 BestEverAlbums 09/01/2026 16:00 in Monthly overall chart movementsFear Of Music comments
Top Comments First | Newest First | Positive Sentiment First | Longest Comments First
(Showing comments with any number of votes. Manage Profile)
Seeing the patchy Remain In Light album rated head and shoulders above this stunner leaves me puzzled and scratching my head.
It's weird to see what people think of certain songs on an album sometimes on this site. But it's also very interesting. I think the album starts out really strong with the first two tracks (I Zimbra and Mind). Then the middle section of the album (Cities, Life During Wartime, Memories Can't Wait) was harder for me to grab onto, which is odd because everyone else seems to love that section. Then I thought 'Air' and 'Heaven' are both great. And the album closes with probably my favorite song of the bunch, 'Drugs'. If I get into the middle section more this would be a killer album for me, which is why I'm going to give it some more listens to no doubt. The only song here I actually disliked was 'Electric Guitar', it's just some of the songs fell a bit flat for me. I still think this is a must listen for Talking Heads newcomers.
Brilliant, it is weird and unique yet amazing at the same time. No matter how many times I listen to it, it always leaves me thinking "I love this but I don't know why". This album shows their influence on Radiohead the clearest in my opinion, compared to their other albums.
This
buzzdainer TOP 100 COMMENTER 06/03/2021 14:17 | #270333 | TOP COMMENT
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Seemingly everything Talking Heads touched in the late seventies turned to gold, but that wasn't because they found a strict formula and stuck to it. Much to the contrary, on Fear of Music they seemed to interrogate everything that had made their oeuvre compelling in the first place, and seemed to question the very idea of pop culture iconography. The song "Heaven," which I'd never heard until my college roommate introduced it to me, was a song that David Byrne almost decided not to include on Fear of Music, and ironically it's the song that best encapsulates the album's spirit: "Heaven is a place," sings Byrne with absolute deadpan sincerity, "A place where nothing / nothing ever happens."
Space-Dementia 11/27/2015 01:36 | #153522 | TOP COMMENT
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It's fine, but I don't really see what the big deal is. Then again, I didn't really enjoy Remain in Light too much either, so maybe I just don't like the band. Which sucks cause they seem really cool and I'd love to love them, but I just can't really get into them.
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