For the most part, Frantz delivers just the right amount of information about rehearsing, writing songs, recording, touring and managing interpersonal relationships within the band and its management team. Musicians will enjoy hearing about the group’s myriad musical and production collaborations and often unusual writing and recording processes, but Frantz explains things clearly and succinctly enough to keep anyone engaged in his tales. He also namechecks an incredible array of people who come into his orbit.

Frantz tells the story of the early days of the New York scene with admirable recall, evoking a cultural moment when anything could happen, and often did.

Frantz...doesn't pull any punches, but he also makes clear that there aren't really any bridges left to Byrne..

... easy-going prose.

Uxoriousness is rarely considered a cardinal rock’n’roll virtue, yet, creditably, Frantz uses Remain in Love to highlight Weymouth’s importance to Talking Heads.

In an electrifying scene, Mr. Frantz describes how his future lead singer read his first verse—'I can’t seem to face up to the facts'—and remarked that he wanted the bridge in another language to emphasize the psychotic mindset. Ms. Weymouth, a francophone, gets on that, as Mr. Frantz writes the other verses: boom! 'Psycho Killer' First go! The reader settles back for more descriptions of such alchemy, but the book will not deliver.

With an eye for detail, Frantz presents sharply drawn pictures of the nascent punk and postpunk world of New York City, life on the road, and, later, the work he and Weymouth did in their group Tom Tom Club. He blends thumbnail portraits of notables he met with tidbits about daily life that charmingly meander from food to travel.

... as much about love as music.

... a bright memoir that reads more of an entertaining greatest-hits compilation than complete life chronicle.