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Talking Heads – Fear Of Music LP 1979 Sire SRK-6076 1st Press textured Brian Eno
Classic Heads Life during Wartime Killed the Dance Floors in 79
Fear of Music is the third studio album by the American band , released on August 3, 1979, by . It was recorded at locations in  during April and May 1979 and was produced by  and Talking Heads. The album reached number 21 on the  and number 33 on the . It spawned the  "", "", and "".

Fear of Music received favorable reviews from critics. Praise centered on its unconventional rhythms and  's lyrical performances. The album is often considered one of Talking Heads' best releases and has been featured in several publications' lists of the best albums of all time.

The album was well received by reviewers. , writing in Rolling Stone, was impressed with its "unswerving rhythms" and Byrne's lyrical evocations; he concluded, "Fear of Music is often deliberately, brilliantly disorienting. Like its black, corrugated packaging (which resembles a ), the album is foreboding, inescapably urban and obsessed with texture."  of  suggested that the record was not a conventional rock release, while Stephanie Pleet of the  commented that it showed a positive progression in Talking Heads' musical style. , writing in , praised the album's "gritty weirdness", but noted that "a little sweetening might help". Richard Cromelin of the  was impressed with Byrne's "awesome vocal performance" and its nuances and called Fear of Music "a quantum leap" for the band. Tom Bentkowski of  concluded, "But what makes the record so successful, perhaps, is a genuinely felt . Talking Heads was clever enough to make the intellectual infectious and even danceable."

In the 1995 , Jeff Salamon called it Talking Heads' most musically varied offering. In a 2003 review, Chris Smith of  praised Byrne's personas and Eno's stylized production techniques. In The  to Rock published the same year, Andy Smith concluded that the album is a strong candidate for the best LP of the 1970s because it is "bristling with hooks, riffs and killer lines".

In 1985, NME placed Fear of Music at number 68 on its writers' list of the "All Time 100 Albums". In 1987, Rolling Stone placed it at number 94 on its list of the best albums of the previous 20 years. In 1999, it was included at number 33 on 's list of the "Top 100 Albums That Don't Appear in All the Other Top 100 Albums of All Time". In 2004,  featured the record at number 31 on its "Top 100 Albums of the 1970s" list, while in 2005,  ranked it at number 76 during its "100 Greatest Albums" countdown. The album was also included in the book .