Talk Talk: Spirit of Eden V.S. Laughing Stock

oh it might be 'i believe in you'

yeah 'after the flood' is a tremendous achievement, and maybe even the best song called 'after the flood' (VdGG's one is fucking spectacular too)

i always get these two mixed up but one of them has a song with a really prominent cowbell or something that mars it, so the other one.

this is totally "Desire"

which rules

Both of these are the best record ever made. One of them I can actually play when other people are around (and often), the other I can only hear alone and every few years, but I think about its 'forms' and 'feel' every single day.

I didn't want to say "Desire" because that's possibly one of my 10 favourite songs ever written, and definitely my top TT track.

I listen to these a lot less than people would probabaly imagine. And I still get accused of talking about them too much even though I don't. I listen to John Cope a LOT, though.

I think the Rainbow triptych at the start of SoE wears me out so much so that I lose attention after I Believe In You.

yeah it was desire!

sorry guys. I can't get past the cowbell.

LS i think. hard decision.

the cowbell is awesome!

Nick, that means you lose attention for one track, and that track is BEAUTY ITSELF set to tape with the greatest fadeout in the history of fadeouts

also the verse of Desire has my favourite chord-sequence

My first hundred listens of Spirit were on cassette so I didn't have that fatigue problem. Basically treated it as two EPs.

Likewise I'm so worn out by the start of New Grass that I float through that track (my favourite) and have pretty much no idea what happens afterwards. Luckily Runei is conducive to this.

Have any of you dudes heard Laughing Stock the song, by Love?

Laughing Stock the song, by Grandaddy, is good

Nick ffs Runeii is fucking astonishing and as I keep saying its air of finality is absolute - it's one of the most certain pieces of music I've heard

But it's so uncertain! So hesitant, and tempting.

it repeats the very, very simple and beautiful structure it has, and redoubles the final piano motif - doesn't get more comprehensive than that - zen-like iirc

there is literally nothing left to say - not many bands have even approached this point let alone reached it

Voted Laughing Stock. It's the one I heard first.

^

I’ll pretty much buy any album going if someone tells me it sounds like ‘Laughing Stock’.

― AnotherDeadHero, Tuesday, 16 March 2010 12:30 (3 hours ago) Bookmark

Can you give some examples of these?

Spirit of Eden?

bark psychosis amirite

also hood - rustic houses, forlorn valleys and the occasional catherine wheel song

neither are that close, though. nobody's close.

Autistic Daughters - Jealousy and Diamond

Voted for Spirit of Eden, but Runeii is one of the most perfect things ever.

My SoE/LS songs poll from a couple years back: The Spirit of Eden/Laughing Stock Individual Songs Poll

Also, a previous SoE vs. LS poll: Talk Talk: 'Spirit of Eden' vs. 'Laughing Stock'

I voted for Laughing Stock but they are both in my top 30 albums of all time.

For me Talk Talk are one of the few artists I can think of that got better with each album.

not enough love for "the colour of spring"

i prefer Laughing Stock but just barely.

not enough love for "the colour of spring"

This is my personal fav. Talk Talk album.

Splits the difference between '80s new-wave/synth pop and eventually stripping the medium to its essential elements. ;-)

oh, you mean post rock?

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(...yes?)

you're wrong anyway. "the colour of spring" is a lost balearic classic. ;)

I got both of these at the same time & they sort of bleed into one monumental mega-album for me, so this is pretty much a coin toss.

These will always be their canonical albums, but it is worth mentioning that, as "transitional" albums go, The Colour of Spring is one of the best.

lol xp

listened to these back to back today and it's laughing stock by a good distance for me i'm surprised to say.

really love the drumming on both of these records. fantastic stuff.

^^^yes

whenever i want to imagine a really resonant, thick drum sound, such as when an oil can is struck, i imagine these records

Laughing Stock for me, they're both incredible although I agree that the cowbell in 'Desire' is off-putting.

guys what the fuck, that drum solo in 'desire' is transcendent

i hate the drum solo in desire. not just the cowbell. but mainly the cowbell.

-_-

def transcendant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmaikgBQBBQ

^ dunno why you would want this but it's a version of 'Desire' w/o the drums

when the harmonica does a kinda donkey-bray feedback oscillation thing in the final run-through of the chorus and then reverses its pattern and then the organ comes back in, it is like music has been won

that's a failed experiment IMO but the same dude has tried to turn After The Flood into a 4-minute pop single! :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8SRsWbv0tA&feature=related

...nah

Yeah, not sure what's up w/ that.

Voting Spirit of Eden because it's the one where they made the break, and therefore more astonishing even if Laughing Stock is arguably an improvement on it in internal terms. Easily one of my favorite albums in the universe, too.

The results of this poll will never stop amusing me. I actually voted for LS but I changed my mind last night to SoE and will change it again. I actually think MH is my not-polled answer though. Well, it was last night when I listened to all three. It changes all the time.

Both are perfect, Laughing Stock a wee bit more so.

the organ tone on laughing stock is one of music’s finest sounds

I bought these two records and Mark Hollis right when they came out, and I agree that the solo album is the best of the three. Even details like the room tone at the opening and closing are perfectly timed. The album is an unexpected mixture of warmth and austerity; I credit it with helping me though the depressive year when it was issued.

When you listen to records as many times as I have heard these, you have to be honest with yourself about what you feel is not working. I've always found Taphead and Runeii on Laughing Stock a little arid. In a way, the progression didn't become clear to me until 1998.

April 5th and Chameleon Day sound to me like they are reaching for the Spirit of Eden sound without getting it yet. The former has an irritating programmed percussion part and the latter has a weird quasi-wind-quartet intro and outro that they would soon replace with acoustic instruments.

― Halfway there but for you, Thursday, 5 November 2020 18:16 (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

wtf the programmed percussion on "April 5th" is brilliant

about 2 minutes into "The Rainbow", at the start of "Spirt of Eden" - what is that scribbling noise? is it a pen or pencil scribbling? to me it sounds like someone just scratching over something

Apparently it's Hugh Davies playing the "shozyg", an electronic instrument of his own making.

i see.

i also love how on this most holy albums of subtlety, the big drums on "Desire" include a big, conkin' cowbell. CONK CONK CONK CONK!

lol

https://i.imgur.com/fAuFMhp.png

true google pros know to use only 3 sets of quotation marks

"let the " algorithm "handle the rest