The Last Emperor is the soundtrack album for the movie of the same name. It features nine songs composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto, five by David Byrne, one from Cong Su, and a few incidental pieces of source music. The album won the Best Music, Original Score award at the 1987 Academy Awards.
"First Coronation" – 1:46
"Open the Door" – 2:54
"Where Is Armo?" – 2:26
"Picking Up Brides" – 2:39
"The Last Emperor – Theme Variation 1" – 2:19
"Rain (I Want a Divorce)" – 1:49
"The Baby (Was Born Dead)" – 0:55
"The Last Emperor – Theme Variation 2" – 4:28
"The Last Emperor – Theme" – 5:54
"Main Title Theme" (The Last Emperor) (Byrne) – 4:01
"Picking a Bride" (Byrne) – 2:00
"Bed" (Byrne) – 5:00
"Wind, Rain, and Water" (Byrne) – 2:18
"Paper Emperor" (Byrne) – 1:49
"Lunch" (Cong Su) 4:54
"Red Guard" (Performed by the Red Guard Accordion Band) – 1:20
"The Emperor's Waltz" (Performed by the Ball Orchestra of Vienna) – 3:06
"The Red Guard Dance (The Girls Red Guard Dancers)" – 0:39

Everything That Happens Will Happen Today is the second album made in collaboration between David Byrne and Brian Eno,[1] released on August 18, 2008.[2] It is the first collaboration between the two since 1981's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts and Eno's work producing and co-writing with Talking Heads. Byrne and Eno worked on creating the album - a mix of electronic and Gospel music - throughout 2007 and early 2008 over the e-mail and have used word-of-mouth and Internet sales to market the music. Byrne will tour for this album, performing songs from both this release and from the duo's previous collaborations, through late 2008 and early 2009.

Brian Eno and David Byrne's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts appears downright visionary. With its "found" vocals, cut-and-paste arrangements, funked-up rhythms and embrace of influences from all around the globe, the duo's controversial work anticipated the creative cross-pollination and technological innovation of contemporary dance music, world music, hip hop and alternative rock. You can hear echoes of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts in the anthems Moby built around vintage vocal samples, in the outrageously exotic beats of Missy Elliot and Timbaland, in the Middle Eastern accented chill-out tracks of Thievery Corporation or Bjork's otherworldly soundscapes.

In the mid-80s David Byrne took a break from exploring the frontiers of Mental-Funkadelic to pursue a passing fascination with regional American musical forms. I think he was trying to draw a connection between the simple artfulness of the American folk tradition that produces this music and the simple-minded commercial culture that consumes it. The results were varying degrees of interesting: the sweetly entertaining Talking Heads album Little Creatures, the unmemorable True Stories mockumentary he wrote and directed, the movie's soundtrack album Sounds From True Stories (vinyl & cassette only, and not bad if you can find it) and the companion Talking Heads album True Stories (not good), and this entirely separate selection of music composed for Robert Wilson's The Knee Plays.
I haven't seen the "play" itself so I can't comment on how this music fits with the performance, but this recording is generally lovely and works very well on its own. Byrne composed a set of pieces for brass band that draws very much on the New Orleans-Dixieland brass band tradition but with his distinctive modern twists. Some of the tunes are sweetly pastoral, but the better ones incorporate percussion and a minor key to impart an unusual mystery and tension to the proceedings. The rhythm and percussion loops of Remain in Light have become orchestrations here, as the rhythm players insistently mark time with a sense of being an approaching unstoppable force. If this were a Dixieland band marching down the street, I don't know if I'd want to stick around for the party. The tension makes sense, as the Knee Plays are part of Wilson's play cycle CIVIL warS and the music in these more dramatic pieces embodies the impending march toward war of the pre-Civil War era.
Some of these pieces are fully instrumental, but several feature Byrne doing spoken word over the music. This can be off-putting in places, such as in "Things To Do (I've Tried)" where the music is rather lovely but you're distracted by Byrne literally reading a numbered list of faintly amusing tasks. It works a little better in the opening track, where his voice tends to fill in the spaces between the music, as if in a call and response pattern. "In The Future" is perhaps the only piece where this technique is especially effective as Byrne reads off a list of not-all-pleasant predictions about society (similar to those found on the Stop Making Sense: Special New Edition (1984 Film) record sleeve) as the music again embodies this tense military x dixie band sound that makes it all seem inevitable.
Spoken word aside, the music stays with you and makes this a great listen. The darkness on the edge of this New Orleans sound is perhaps even more relevant today than twenty years ago, and I'm glad to have this on CD finally.
This new edition not only includes the premiere CD appearance of Knee Plays, but also several extra tracks and a DVD. Thankfully, these items aren't really reflected in the price, making these actual bonuses and not necessarily content you're paying for. As such, they're interesting but not essential.
The extra tracks are in two categories: instrumental versions of some pieces that in their main appearance feature Byrne's recitation, and "kabuki" music that represents Byrne's abandoned first attempt at a score for this production. The instrumentals solve one of the problems I point out above by removing Byrne's voice and spotlighting the music. The kabuki pieces, on the other hand, fail to impress me. These are very different from the rest of the music both in style and arrangement and perhaps are interesting to consider, but I for one am glad that Byrne chose a different musical direction based on the evidence presented here.
The DVD is unique in that it presents perhaps the only visual document of the Knee Plays in performance by the projection of hundreds of b&w photos of its premiere, while Byrne's entire score plays. There's no extra music here; it's exactly the same as the main part of the CD. The photos play in an automatic gallery manner. In a very nice touch, they dissolve from one to the next, approximating the illusion of movement as it happened on stage. What's hard to gauge is the tempo of movement as the pictures seem to change in uniform increments, so that aspect of the performance is diminished. If you're a real student of Wilson's theater pieces, this is a valuable document. If not, this might be interesting viewing once but at nearly an hour long it's a little dull to watch in one sitting. Frankly, the monotony really stands out with respect to Byrne's sometimes funky score. In the project's defense, though, I'm no fan of this sort of theater performance and others may appreciate this more. Thankfully, a menu allows you to select individual scenes/songs.
Byrne has included some modern liner notes about the process of designing The Knee Plays and producing its music. They also shed light on the nature of the piece, particularly that the "plot," the musical style, and the recitations were all intended to have nothing to do with each other. Thus we end up with a story vaguely about historical Japan set to New Orleans brass band music with an anachronistically modern narration. Draw your own conclusions.

Here Lies Love is a double-disc song cycle--improbably poignant, decidedly surreal, surprisingly thought provoking--about the rise and fall of the Philippines' notorious Imelda Marcos. It was conceived by David Byrne; composed by Byrne and DJ/recording artist Fatboy Slim, AKA Norman Cook; and performed by a dream cast drawn from the worlds of indie rock, alt country, R&B and pop. Byrne's taste in collaborators is as imaginative as it is impeccable, including Cyndi Lauper (who recounts, to lighthearted disco beats, Imelda's courtship with Ferdinand Marcos), Steve Earle (as the power-hungry Ferdinand), Dap-Kings vocalist Sharon Jones (recalling Imelda's introduction into New York society) and Natalie Merchant (as spurned Imelda confidante Estrella, anticipating the onset of martial law). Along with vocal turns from such stars as Tori Amos and the B-52's Kate Pierson, Byrne works with rising indie rockers St. Vincent and My Brightest Diamond; New York chanteuses Nellie McKay and Martha Wainwright; and dance-music divas Roisin Murphy and Santigold. Byrne himself appears as the voice of imperialistic America on "American Troglodyte", a send-up that wouldn't have seemed out of places in Talking Heads' True Stories.
Byrne originally envisioned this as a musical theatre piece, to be mounted in disco and nightclub settings, reflecting the globe-trotting Marcos' taste for such velvet-roped spots as Studio 54 and Regine's. In 2006, he performed work-in-progress versions to enthusiastic audiences at New York City's Carnegie Hall and the Adelaide Festival in Australia. While plans for a US theatrical production continue to evolve, he has delivered this unique recording. Here Lies Love has an effervescent disco feel, redolent of Fatboy Slim's own dance-floor anthems, with warm undercurrents of the Latin rhythms that have percolated through Byrne's recent solo work. The sunny arrangements act in counterpoint to the reality of the Marcos' increasingly repressive regime, reflecting the imagined inner life of the glamour-obsessed Imelda. Explains Byrne, "For me, the darker side of the excesses are, for the most part, a matter of record. A lot of the audience is going to come with that knowledge already. What's more of a challenge is to get inside the head of the person who was behind all of that, and understand what made them tick." Byrne offers no judgment and avoids the obvious--there is no mention of Imelda's infamous shoe collection.
Many of Byrne's lyrics are, astonishingly enough, constructed from actual Imelda quotes, including the project's title, the words that Imelda, now returned to the Philippines from US-assisted exile in Hawaii, would like to have inscribed on her gravestone. Byrne generously annotates each song in the CD booklet and illustrates the story with archival photos. In a detailed preface, he reveals what drew him to this subject and the bumpy route he took to launch the project and, ultimately, record this CD. The lavish booklet is indeed a page-turner, just as Here Lies Love is a wonderfully old-school album that rewards start-to-finish listening. Once again, Byrne--beloved as musician, thinker and bicyclist-about-town--reveals the breadth and singularity of his vision.

Japanese edition of his 2001 studio album includes one bonustrack, 'Empire'. 13 tracks in all.

Slick politicians, laughing exorcists, Lebanese folk singers, agitated radio hosts, and radio reverends all shared speaker space with some wildly funky music on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. With this album, Brian Eno and David Byrne combined programming, live instrumentation and samples into a clever stew that anticipated, in one way or another, nearly every trend in electronic music for at least the next decade. The sonic result of their collaboration expanded on the hypnotic worldbeat experiments of the Eno-produced Talking Heads albums (particularly Remain in Light, as this album was recorded during those sessions), bringing in folk recordings and plying the wasteland of American talk radio for choice material. Popular music turned a corner with this record, and things haven't been the same since. --Joe Tangari

First single off the former Talking Heads' frontman's forthcoming solo album 'Look Into The Eyeball' (scheduled for release May 8). Tracks, 'Like Humans Do' & two previously unreleased non-LP tracks, 'All Over Me' & 'Princess'. 2001 release.

电子流行乐队Son Lux联手当红独立音乐人Mitski、传奇音乐人David Byrne带来最新单曲《This Is A Life》，这首歌也是近期电影《Everything Everywhere All At Once》的片尾曲。

Nonesuch releases the cast album for the current critically acclaimed Broadway production of David Byrne’s American Utopia, with music and lyrics by David Byrne; it is available digitally now. The two-CD version will be released on November 22 and is available to pre-order in the Nonesuch Store; the vinyl edition will be available this winter.
"Dazzling, rapturous and jubilant," exclaims the New York Times of the show. "Byrne puts the central tenet of making contact with a world outside your mind into dynamic, sensory practice onstage."
"Astonishing," raves Hollywood Reporter. "A knockout celebration of music, dance and song. Pure bliss."
"A heady swirl of hope for our anxious times," says Rolling Stone. "The concert-theater-dance spectacle finds solace in human connections … a tonic for our tumultuous times..."
American Utopia began as an album, also released by Nonesuch, which received a Grammy nomination and was the first by Byrne to reach #1 on the Album Chart; it was also his first to reach the Top Five on the Billboard 200 chart. The concert tour in support of American Utopia, which inspired the Broadway show, included songs from the new album along with music from Talking Heads and Byrne’s solo career. Byrne and the ensemble performed more than 150 dates in twenty-seven countries over nine months. The British publication NME said it “may just be the best live show of all time,” and it was named Best International Contemporary Concert at Australia’s 2019 Helpmann Awards.
David Byrne’s American Utopia features David Byrne with Jacquelene Acevedo, Gustavo Di Dalva, Daniel Freedman, Chris Giarmo, Tim Keiper, Tendayi Kuumba, Karl Mansfield, Mauro Refosco, Stéphane San Juan, Angie Swan, and Bobby Wooten III; Davi Viera also performs on the album. The show’s design team includes Rob Sinclair (lighting) and Pete Keppler (sound). Karl Mansfield and Mauro Refosco are Musical Directors. Choreography and Musical Staging is by Annie-B Parson. Alex Timbers serves as Production Consultant.
Fresh off an acclaimed pre-Broadway engagement at Boston’s Emerson Colonial Theatre, David Byrne’s American Utopia began performances on October 4 at the intimate Hudson Theatre on Broadway and celebrated opening night on Sunday, October 20.
David Byrne’s American Utopia is the once-in-a-lifetime Broadway event that delivers “an experience unlike anything else” (Billboard) and marks a major cultural milestone in the worlds of music and theater. David Byrne shares the spotlight with a diverse ensemble of eleven musical artists from around the globe to deliver “a marvel of staging and motion” (Chicago Tribune) that’s a “thought-provoking example of the power of live music” (Forbes).
In addition to American Utopia on Broadway, the label has released eight other David Byrne records since 2003, including 2018’s American Utopia studio album and two versions of his musical Here Lies Love.