Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		0.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		5.0

Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 2, 2024

Fans of David Byrne and/or Talking Heads who are also fans of Blu-ray, 4K UHD and/or Dolby Atmos should be at least in sixth heaven by now, if they haven't made it all the way to seventh heaven, given the fact that A24 fairly recently released Stop Making Sense and Stop Making Sense 4K, offering the original concert film in either 1080 or 2160 with some appealing supplements and, yes, Dolby Atmos audio. Rhino, which has just been on a tear recently with a rather large number of typically excellent hi-res audio releases, is now following up by presenting the original album version in a nicely designed package that includes 2 CDs as well as an audio Blu-ray that features both Dolby Atmos and LPCM 2.0 options.

The album's track list can be seen in the screenshots of the disc menu I've uploaded to accompany this review.

Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

This is another Rhino audio Blu-ray with a bit of video content, courtesy of a slightly animated menu that sees the band name and album name "quiver" slightly as a black disc (an LP?) rotates in and out. The disc does so fairly quickly, and so I wasn't able to completely capture the movements it makes, but parsing through the screenshots I've uploaded to accompany this review will give at least some idea of what it looks like. Rhino tends to author its audio Blu-rays differently, but this is commendably one where the colored buttons on your remote allow you to toggle between codecs, so having a monitor or display engaged is not strictly necessary.

Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense features either Dolby Atmos or DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 audio options. You might automatically think the Atmos mix here will duplicate the sound of the concert film's soundtrack, but that's not strictly the case, rather interestingly. For just one of several potential examples, the opening "Psycho Killer" provides an at least somewhat more immersive listening experience here, with clear engagement of the side and rear channels, if not much emanating from the Atmos speakers, whereas even the Atmos track for the concert film tended to keep a lot of the "solo" material early in the concert anchored more toward the front, perhaps understandably. The sense of spaciousness and being the center of the concert hall is quite profound in the Atmos track, and there is beautifully fluid fidelity, with really expressive energy in the midrange and low end in particular. "Overhead" activity may frankly not be overly pronounced, but you get a sense of wafting sound in some of the crowd noises in particular.

Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There is no supplemental content on the Blu-ray disc. 2 CDs are included, and there's a very nicely appointed insert booklet recreating the original with additional content.

Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Stop Making Sense has often been called one of the greatest concert videos of all time, but there's kind of a hilarious downside to watching it: Byrne and his cohort are so gonzo at times that it can kind of make actually listening to the music take a back seat, so to speak. This audio presentation is top notch and should easily delight the film's fans. The fact that this mix shows some interesting differences from the audio presentation on the recent 1080 and 2160 releases of the film may make this even more alluring. Highly recommended.