True Stories (Talking Heads album)
1986 studio album by Talking Heads

True Stories is the seventh studio album by the American rock band Talking Heads. It was released on September 15, 1986, by Sire Records, preceding lead vocalist David Byrne's related satirical musical comedy film True Stories.
Content
The album includes only Talking Heads studio recordings of songs from the film; an original cast recording from the film was planned, but was not released at the time, although some actors' performances were featured on the B-sides of singles of songs drawn from the album. Later that year, Byrne released the album Sounds from True Stories containing incidental music from the soundtrack. In 2018, a complete film soundtrack album was finally released, combining cast performances from the film and tracks from the two previous albums; only those three performances by Talking Heads from the first True Stories album that are actually heard in the film were included.
The single "Wild Wild Life" became the most prominent hit from the album, accompanied by its video airplay on MTV. The "Wild Wild Life" video won two MTV Video Music Awards in 1987: "Best Group Video" and "Best Video from a Film" (the video is in fact an extended sequence lifted directly from the film itself). A video for "Love for Sale" was created for use in the film (during a sequence when a woman, played by Swoosie Kurtz, watches the video on a television), and an extended version was later released as a video in its own right.
In 2006, the album was re-released and remastered by Warner Music Group on their Warner Bros./Sire Records/Rhino Records labels in DualDisc format, with three bonus tracks on the CD side (an extended mix of "Wild Wild Life", "Papa Legba" with lead vocals by Pops Staples, and "Radio Head" with vocals by Tito Larriva). The DVD-Audio side includes both stereo and 5.1 surround high resolution (96 kHz/24bit) mixes, as well as a Dolby Digital version and the music videos of "Wild Wild Life" and "Love for Sale". In Europe, it was released as a CD+DVDA two disc set rather than a single DualDisc.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3271604. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1986, 2018, 1987 and 2006.
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