Sytze Steenstra, a university professor from Holland, wrote a book a few years ago called "The Noise Between Stations"."Song and Circumstance" is an updated, partly rewritten, and not quite as scholarly version of his first book. In both, he traces David Byrne's art (notice I use "art", because while music made him famous, it's really just one part of his creative output) back to the Romantic movement which began in Europe in the late 1700s.Neither of the books is intended for the casual Talking Heads fan, but instead are aimed at those of us who have followed Byrne's art from Talking Heads through right now. He's been incredibly prolific, and shows no sign of slowing down. Even as I write this, he's doing an installation of obscure signs placed randomly throughout downtown Reykjavik, Iceland (it's probably no coincidence that one Cindy Sherman is doing an exhibit in Reykjavik simultaneously, but I digress).Back to the book: The phrase coined by Byrne "Stop Making Sense" pretty much summarizes the Romantic movement, as one of the central ideas was to reject formalism, rationalism, etc., and instead, artists and thinkers should focus on inner spirituality, intuition, and so on. That said, there are few artists who are as deliberate, focused, and structured as David Byrne.Steenstra argues that Romanticism first begat avant garde, and more recently post modernism, and places Byrne as being directly influenced by these movements. Steenstra may not specifically articulate it, but one gets the sense in reading his books that Byrne is actually trailblazing a "post post modernist", "post avant garde", and post Romanticist genre with his own art.Post Modernism in music was originally defined by a rejection of a traditional, layered, and conventional approach to recording. Although the Beatles late, mostly psychedelic albums arguably came first, within the rock genre, the Velvet Underground is most often cited as the first "post modern" band. Beyond stripping the music down to its bare essentials, with the help of Andy Warhol, the Velvets pioneered multi media presentations by using graphics, projected images, and film as part of their performance.Both Romanticism, avant garde, and post modernism inherently rejected "popularly" accepted notions in design, architecture, music, and art.Byrne's musical genius lies in blending avant garde with pop music. "Talking Heads 77", and especially "Fear of Music" and "More Songs About Buildings and Food", illustrate the deconstruction of rock music, a key element of post modernism. Brian Eno produced the latter two albums along with "Remain In Light". Most of the songs on the first two records reflect the alienation, paranoia, and lack of emotion produced in the individual in a post World War 2 consumerist America. "Remain in Light", the third Eno produced Talking Heads record, while owing a lot to Fela Kuti, can also be directly traced to the German band Can. The sound and textures of Can's late sixties and early seventies records are uncannily (that pun wrote itself) similar to much of "Remain in Light". The latter record also stands as a bridge between Byrne's more overt avant garde phase, and the more "pop" (or at least more accessible) oriented sound of Talking Heads beginning with "Speaking in Tongues".Talking Heads' mainstream success peaked with "True Stories" and "Little Creatures". This didn't mean Byrne had "sold out" by any means. His steady stream of art since the breakup of Talking Heads has continued unabated, and while Steenstra argues it is framed within Romanticism, conceptualism and post modernism, Byrne is really forging a new genre, most of which can be equally enjoyed by the masses and by those who might be attuned to contemporary art and design.In any case, great book if you're interested in learning more about what makes this endlessly multi faceted and fascinating artist really tick.