David Byrne’s American Utopia, released in 2018 as a resistance manifesto and rallying cry during the first Trump administration, was as ambitious as its title. Beginning as a songwriting reunion with his old partner Brian Eno, the album ballooned into a Broadway production that was eventually captured on film by Spike Lee. Every iteration and star collaboration positioned American Utopia as a major statement, a reckoning with the distance between the illustrious promise of the United States and its benighted reality.
Arriving after all that commotion, Who Is the Sky? feels like a sigh of relief, an exhale after such a gargantuan endeavor. The two albums, so different in feel, derive from the same premise: Joy is precious in the 21st century, so it’s worth celebrating the reasons to be cheerful. That phrase, lifted from an old new-wave hit from Ian Dury & the Blockheads, is the name of Byrne’s ongoing cross-platform positivity project, a kind of Buzzfeed for relentless optimists. It wouldn’t be a stretch to consider What Is the Sky? an extension of that publication: These songs are designed to help get you through the day—vivid, colorful tunes that place a premium on human interaction. But an album is a different beast than a daily dose of motivation. The line between positivity and platitude is a fine one.
Byrne certainly sounds tirelessly exuberant on What Is the Sky?, thanks in part to the assist he receives from Ghost Train Orchestra, a freewheeling ensemble that’s no stranger to ambitious undertakings. Prior to teaming with Byrne, the collective released a tribute to visionary polymath Moondog, performed in collaboration with avant-classical veterans Kronos Quartet. If any group can navigate Byrne’s buoyant polyrhythms and sly stylistic shifts, it’s Ghost Train Orchestra. But Who Is the Sky? is not intended as high art: It’s designed to be a bustling pop album, so Byrne has brought in producer Kid Harpoon—a British musician who’s helped Harry Styles and Miley Cyrus take home Grammys—to supply the requisite pizzazz.
Don’t take Kid Harpoon’s presence, or the cameo from Paramore’s Hayley Williams on the galloping “What Is the Reason for It?,” as a sign that Byrne is tempering his eccentricities in hopes of reaching a broader audience. Kid Harpoon’s sparkling production gives Byrne the freedom to live loud, pushing his eccentricities to the extreme, a shift that’s evident the moment “Everybody Laughs” launches the album on a note of aggressive happiness. Yelping a laundry list of banal universals (“Everybody laughs and everybody cries/Everybody lives and everybody dies”), Byrne sounds like an over-caffeinated busker desperate to get passersby to join the party. His zeal steamrolls any hint of the darker side of human nature (“Everybody knows what everybody does”), as does the zest of Ghost Train Orchestra: They’re all clashing primary colors.
