What We’re Listening To: 2/27/2026

Each week, the Live Music Blog team takes stock of what’s been populating their playlists and getting endlessly stuck in their heads from the week that was. These can be new releases, obscure tracks in niche genres, or classic albums dusted off due to nostalgia (or because they’re simply awesome).

Enjoy what we’re listening to this week… and listen along with us if you so choose!

Look Into The Eyeball – David Byrne (2001)

David Byrne has one of the most distinct singing voices in all of alternative music. Still, it is almost insperably associated with the Talking Heads, a habit that I’m also guilty of. As a result, when I first heard “Like Humans Do” earlier this week on an FM radio station while driving, my first thought was, “What Talking Heads song is this?” The beauty and tragedy of FM radio, especially a college radio station (shout out to Florida State’s WVFS), is that sometimes you hear a song and its could be lost forever if you don’t stick around until the DJ back announces what’s been playing. Later that day, I was combing the Talking Heads’ catalog looking the song when I couldn’t find it, so I resorted to the tactic that I’ve been using since middle school, Googling the lyrics that I remembered, in this case, just the humble “I’m breathin’ in; I’m breathin’ out.” This is how I found the full David Byrne solo album, “Look Into The Eyeball.”

All twelve tracks on this album are united by a sense of dreaminess. More often than not, the melodies float and flutter around you. Byrne’s distinct voice usually errs on the softer side compared to the more impassioned belting he’s known for with the Talking Heads. The sleeper hit on this album for me has been “The Great Intoxication.” Ballad-like, but also percussive and driven. The album as a whole seems to written in a state of intoxicated bewilderment at the beauty of the human race.

This is a softer side of David Byrne. Still, the album as a whole is far from one note. There is the punchy and percussive “Desconocido Soy” (reminiscent of “I Zimbra”), and the melancholic “The Accident,” which is distinct from but reminiscent of the opening verse of “A Day in the Life.” Every song is also brilliantly textured and well-produced. Most importantly, though, the album is permeated by an undeniable earnestness. Listen to “Everyone’s in Love With You” and tell me I’m wrong.

Top Tracks: “Like Humans Do,” “The Great Intoxication,” “Neighborhood”

Listen Next: Stop Making Sense by Talking Heads, “This is a Life (feat. Mitski & David Byrne), by Son Lux, Modern Guilt by Beck

Touchy – Luie Luie (1974)

I’ve mentioned it before. I love college radio stations. I’ve found so many gems listening to it while driving around in my 1995 beater car that no algorithm would ever dare to feed me. The music of Luie Luie is one of them. If I had to put his music into words, I’d describe it as electro-latin-funk. The technical genre that it belongs to would be considered “outsider music.” That would be, artists with no formal training, whose music is self-produced. Indeed, this album was entirely produced by Luie Luie, as he proudly announces in the opening track: “I made this recording all by myself, I play every instrument that you will hear, including harps, bells, scratchers, Moog synthesizers, and what have you.” The end result is lively, funky, driven, danceable, and, most importantly, touchable. That is, the music is meant to be enjoyed in the presence of another human that you dance with, while making human contact.

Just as interesting as the music are the introductions to each song. All of them have at least one spoken word component to them. The album itself plays out like a manifesto. It is an invitation for the listener to engage in physical connection with others (consensually, of course). Throughout his intermittent monologues, he laments the distance between dancers on dance floors, celebrates grandparents dancing with their grandchildren, and even attests to the superiority of the handmade tortilla over those that are factory-made. Touch is more than a metaphor here. Luie Luie believes that the hand (or elbow, or nose) is a gateway to a sort of sacred intimacy.

The music is weird, groovy, and has that 1970s crunch to it. Admittedly, the tracks can get a bit repetitive, but that’s part of the point. Luie Luie is trying to establish a genre here, one which he calls “The Touchy.” A Touchy has rules. It must begin with a wild trumpet intro, and it must be punctuated by a “Bop. Bop. Bop-bop bop,” to signal that the dance is over, lest the dancers never stop touching. Normally, I’d say this is great music to listen to in your car on a warm spring day with the windows down, but not if you’re driving alone. Find someone, anyone in your life, who would welcome your touch and listen to it with them.

Top Tracks: “El Touchy,” “Touch Me With All Your Heart,” “Tortilla Touchy”

Listen Next: I, Jonathan by Jonathan Richman, Hi How Are You by Daniel Johnston, Moog Espana by Sid Bass

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