Talk Talk (RIP Mark Hollis)

Maybe that's why the critical fawning doesn't bug me (although the gave-it-two-listens negative reviews are still funny after all these years).

(BTW, don't mind Matt and I - we're friends from way back.)

the mythology is that it was ignored completely and then rediscovered thanks to tastemakers like jim o'rourke etc in the mid 90s (not a long path to rediscovery mind, but still)

but is this actually true? certainly the emergence of post rock etc. gave the album a new home, a new sense of approachability etc., but i would think a symapthetic audience would have existed in 1991 as well, however small

Some contemporary reviews (scroll downward) It most certainly was not ignored completely -- Melody Maker, for one, ran a big interview with Hollis, a follow-up technical interview with Brown and Hollis and a review all within a couple of weeks of each other.

From NME, September 28, 1991

TALK TALK
Laughing Stock (Verve)
Once upon a time Mark Hollis was the intense-eyed ranting lad who shouted "All you do is talk talk !". Then he became the anthemically melancholy lad who moaned "Its my life !" and never looked back from a life of anthemic melancholy.

As time goes by, Mark Hollis' music has slipped into a vat of dark, brooding melancholy so deep that even David Sylvian would join Right Said Fred rather than partake of its glummo brew.

In despair did EMI release an anthemically melancholy singles album and in more despair an anthemically melancholy dance remix album - an act on a par with releasing an Ambient House mix of Sham 69's "Hurry Up Harry", only not as interesting.

Now Hollis has gone to Verve and recorded "Laughing Stock" with 23 acoustically-oriented bass and organ and drum people. There is a slight jazz feel to this record. There are elements of soundtrack ambience. There are songs called "After The Flood". There are lyrics like "A hunger uncurbed by nature's calling". The whole thing is unutterably pretentious and looks over its shoulder hoping that someone will remark on its 'moody brilliance' or some such. It's horrible.

(4 out of 10)

David Quantick

what's funny is that certain phrases in hollis's lyrics DO irritate me, but only when i can make them out. it doesnt seem to be an album that really puts much pressure on the lyrics to signify anyhow.

I know that John McEntire of Tortoise namechecked SOE or LS in The Wire around '95. But I don't think he was a fan much before that, as I know the guy who turned him onto them only a few years previously...

1. i think the battery of adjectives applied to their later albums actually does the band and its music a disservice

amateur!st, i've been trying to divine what you and other threaders mean by this, and i'm still not quite sure. (i'm assuming it's not a "they don't understand it like i do" type of reaction.)

2. What on earth is that thing on the cover of the Mark Hollis album? It looks like a ferret trapped in a can of sardines.

?

I bought both late period records when they came out (I actually had the 45 of "Life's What You Make It" too but it took me much longer to finally pick up Colour of Spring). Sorry if that sounds annoying; that's my "losing my edge" moment for the day. Anyway, I first heard "I Believe in You" on WLLZ-FM in Detroit which was like an AOR station by day, but had a weekend alt program (I wonder if Andy K. remembers it; hosted by Mike Halloran I think?) I was immediately transfixed; it just sounded so unlike everything else they would play. I remember hearing that organ and ascending bass kick in after the first verse and feeling like I was floating away. And then the choir at the end .. goosebumps. Laughing Stock was definitely one of the most anticipated albums of that period of my life. Badmotorfinger was probably the other one though, so that my lose me some coolness points.

Anyway, I don't remember seeing anything written about them. The one guy I do recall writing a really positive review that seemed to "get it" is the sometime-maligned Thom Jurek in the Metro Times. So I've always kind of respected him for that, no matter what I've thought of his writing since.

I was the music director at my college station when Laughing Stock came out, and anyone who's done that job knows one of the worst aspects is taking calls from annoying major label reps promoting all sorts of horrible records. I remember once the PolyGram rep phoned, and preparing to take the call I'm thinking "Oh great, this shouldn't be too irritating, I'll just talk to him about how much I like the Talk Talk record." But he was all like "oh, we don't care about them" (!) Like, he didn't even want to push this record of theirs that I had actually expressed interest in (for once). It was like, they were completely resigned to it doing poorly and weren't even bothering or something. Or maybe they had the jazz department working it or something. Anyway, I just found it shocking and depressing.

But is SOE the best record of the bunch? I know it's become kind of hip to like LS, esp. in light of our revisitation of all things 90's lately. Plus, it's even more oblique in many ways. Still, I wonder whether SOE is the best of the three (better of the two). On the basis of its very strong tunes, the originality of the concept, and the risk Hollis took making it (it supposedly made the record execs cry it was so uncommercial), I think it might be...

I'd rate the other ones in decending order per their order of release, with Mark Hollis a definate last. But that's just me.

i like all of the cited records and dont feel any need to decide, although as noted above i took spirit of eden with me to paris in a clinch

Still one of the greatest ILM threads ever.

The voice, the production quality, and the melodies, both vocal and guitar with the lite-jazz beat made me think initially of 80s 'organic' adult pop/rock (and certainly not of medieval music). The Sting comparisons upthread seem apt (though I haven't listened to a whole Sting album either). It sounded like how 'organic' music was produced at that time. (I actually quite like, on the other hand, the sound of glossed-out 80s studio synth-fusion. I don't know if I was hoping for more of that kind of sound, maybe because I'd heard they used to be a synthpop band.) But, like I said, that feeling does change as the track progresses.