Talk Talk (RIP Mark Hollis)

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Oh yes it is.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 22:03 (twenty-one years ago)

*rereads thread* Damn, this is one of those thread that should be bronzed or something, ILM at its finest I think.

-- Ned Raggett (ne...), January 19th, 2004.

― Lukas (lukas), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 22:09 (twenty-one years ago)

More music should sound like this.

― Mr. Snrub, Thursday, 1 July 2004 00:04 (twenty-one years ago)

it's not possible.

Mark Hollis is the best of the three

(for now).

― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 1 July 2004 00:12 (twenty-one years ago)

these days I listen to color of spring more than the others but that's because the others do intense things to me and I listen to music at work.

― kyle (akmonday), Thursday, 1 July 2004 01:59 (twenty-one years ago)

five months pass...

REVIVE.

I just bought Spirit of Eden....It's very cool...bewitching....unstructured but not really arty at the same time....This is the first time I've heard Talk Talk (except for the No Doubt covers)....pleasantly suprised that I can't really think of many records that sound like Spirit of Eden.....Almost in a weird was reminds me of some meld of Scritti Polliti and Van Morrison Astral Weeks, but I'm probably wrong.

Interesting cool stuff....Next up I think is Bark Psychosis I'm finally going to hear those dudes as well....

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 2 December 2004 18:35 (twenty-one years ago)

I've only heard "It's My Life" but I think it's a pretty good song.

― Hot Pants, Thursday, 2 December 2004 18:55 (twenty-one years ago)

It's a starting point and a fine one. But there's much more to investigate...

Matt: good on you with Bark Psychosis. Next, Disco Inferno. AND THEN YOU WILL BE MY SLAVE. Er, anyway.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 2 December 2004 19:38 (twenty-one years ago)

LS and SoE do different things. I think I find SoE more enjoyable and LS more rewarding. But it's not black and white by any means.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Thursday, 2 December 2004 19:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Matt: good on you with Bark Psychosis. Next, Disco Inferno. AND THEN YOU WILL BE MY SLAVE. Er, anyway.

Disco Inferno the wrestler?? He was okay I guess.

Oddly enough, a friend in another corner of the Internets just got a Chameleons record and is raving about it....I've still gotta pick one of those up....Ragget-rock renaissance I guess.

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 2 December 2004 20:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Not to toot my own horn, but I'm having by best streak at the record stores in a long time.....last 5 discs I bought are:

Nick Cave - Abbatoir Blues/Lyre of Orpheus
Exploding Hearts - Guitar Romantic
PIL - Second Edition/Metal Box
Talk Talk - Spirit of Eden
Dillinger Four - Midwestern Songs of the Americas

ALL THESE RECORDS ARE GREAT!!! I'M ON FIRE!!!

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 2 December 2004 20:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Sure would be nice to see ILMers discuss their pre-Spirit of Eden material. Like, you know, how they began as a poor man's Duran Duran.

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Thursday, 2 December 2004 20:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Exploding Hearts - Guitar Romantic

Chuck Eddy gets pride of place for being the first guy I know of who liked these fellers. Or so I thought. Good album, RIP.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 2 December 2004 20:51 (twenty-one years ago)

I take it back, a good slew of ILM folk spoke up all at once over here:

Car Accident Kills Three Exploding Hearts

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 2 December 2004 20:53 (twenty-one years ago)

I really enjoy Colour of Spring. It sounds like it "should" be cheesy or schmaltzy, with all the big arrangements, child choruses(!), and lyrics like "life's what you make it," but somehow they pull it off perfectly. It's not quite SoE or LS, but definitely, definitely worthwhile.

I haven't dug farther back into their discog though.

xpost

― sleep (sleep), Thursday, 2 December 2004 21:18 (twenty-one years ago)

re: exploding hearts

That's so sad that they died. Extra poignant cuz that record is so youthful and hopeful and full of life and promise. It would have been interesting to see how they developed as a band, whether they would have kept on with the lo-fi undertones/buzzcocks thing they'd already pretty much mastered or tried more ambitious songwriting and production style stuff....I guess I'm wondering whether they would have taken a Jam-like artistic trajectory or been more like the Ramones....

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 2 December 2004 21:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Sure would be nice to see ILMers discuss their pre-Spirit of Eden material. Like, you know, how they began as a poor man's Duran Duran.

I'm a huge fan of The Party's Over, actually (their much-maligned debut). A completely different beast from Spirit of Eden, it's minor-key synth-pop that sounds nothing like Duran Duran (they never did).

Talk Talk never put out a bad record. FACT!

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 2 December 2004 22:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Its great music to fuck to!

― Sonny, Ah!!1 (Sonny A.), Thursday, 2 December 2004 22:37 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm a huge fan of The Party's Over, actually (their much-maligned debut). A completely different beast from Spirit of Eden, it's minor-key synth-pop that sounds nothing like Duran Duran (they never did).

Tell that to Colin Thurston.

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Thursday, 2 December 2004 23:06 (twenty-one years ago)

He's Colin Wrongston if he believes differently.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 2 December 2004 23:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Ho, ho. Seriously, though: do you really think the track "Talk Talk" doesn't sound a thing like Duran Duran?

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Thursday, 2 December 2004 23:10 (twenty-one years ago)

do you really think the track "Talk Talk" doesn't sound a thing like Duran Duran?

It doesn't sound a thing like Duran Duran! For a start, Hollis' vocals are nothing like LeBon's. Secondly, Duran Duran aren't nearly as keyboard-driven as Talk Talk (Talk Talk had no guitarist). Duran Duran used actual drums, whereas Talk Talk used synth drums. Duran Duran sing about romance and one night stands and nonsensical adventure, Talk Talk sing about miscommunication, struggles with faith and disillusion. Talk Talk had a more solidly "synthetic" sound, whereas Duran Duran -- by contrast -- sounded pretty conventional (not knocking them, mind you). Apart from the facts that (a) both bands were British and (b) both band names featured a repeated word, they don't have much in common.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 2 December 2004 23:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Wow, now I double want to get Laughing Stock. This is one potentially good result of the 90s poll.

― LaRue (rockist_scientist), Thursday, 2 December 2004 23:26 (twenty-one years ago)

Apart from the facts that (a) both bands were British and (b) both band names featured a repeated word, they don't have much in common.

Except for the way the chorus's "All you wanna do is talk talk!" sounds, that is.

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Thursday, 2 December 2004 23:38 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm sorry, I don't mean to be flip -- but there's just no question in my mind that Colin and a coked-up Mark were going for that with that song. I can't even remember them enough to know whether the other songs on The Party's Over sound that way or not.

Oh, and Thurston's a fucking hack -- from 1981 onwards, anyway...

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Thursday, 2 December 2004 23:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Except for the way the chorus's "All you wanna do is talk talk!" sounds, that is.

Not being flip either, but I don't hear it.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 2 December 2004 23:48 (twenty-one years ago)

one month passes...

What an awesome thread. Spirit of Eden is my favorite album.

― Grand Epic (Grand Epic), Sunday, 16 January 2005 09:21 (twenty-one years ago)

i hear "talk talk" and think of "planet earth"

― nick le bon-taylor, Sunday, 16 January 2005 10:38 (twenty-one years ago)

one year passes...

Just got near-mint vinyl copies of Spirit Of Eden and It's My Life for a total of 4 bucks from an out-of-the-way record store. Thanks, ILM! Good stuff. I am basking in it as we speak.

― sleeve (sleeve), Tuesday, 24 January 2006 08:15 (twenty years ago)

do not neglect the latterday non-album tracks from "asides besides" as they are epic. namely "it's getting late in the evening" "for what it's worth" and "john cope."

― fortunate hazel (f. hazel), Tuesday, 24 January 2006 08:54 (twenty years ago)

f. hazel speaketh the truth. Mind the mid-era b-sides ("Pictures oF Bernadette" esp.) are also fucking great.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 24 January 2006 08:59 (twenty years ago)

two months pass...

I'm not going to read this thread unless the following is the consensus:

synth-pop Talk Talk > Spirit of Eden

(I have the POWER of SCIENCE on my side here.)

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Saturday, 8 April 2006 20:35 (twenty years ago)

This thread is a great read. It's the one that brought me to this board via google a year ago.

― van igloo (van smack), Saturday, 8 April 2006 21:20 (twenty years ago)

I'm with Ned: I don't find Spirit of Eden as compelling as Laughing Stock. And The Colour of Spring is a marvelous listen in its own right.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Saturday, 8 April 2006 21:55 (twenty years ago)

All three are great in different ways and picking one over another is like choosing which mouthful of your favourite meal is best.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Saturday, 8 April 2006 22:16 (twenty years ago)

RobM upthread actually really MUST have heard something other than Laughing Stock, because the last track on LS is just vocal and guitar, no piano. CoS mistaken?

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Saturday, 8 April 2006 22:22 (twenty years ago)

four months pass...

(The Spirit Of Eden thread didn't seem to like me posting, so I'm trying here instead.)

Found this on YouTube, their last ever TV appearance:

I Believe In You

For fanatics, something sublime (even though it's mimed).
For the unconverted, it'll swing you one way or the other (RadioWho?).

― Huey in Melbourne (Huey in Melbourne), Sunday, 3 September 2006 13:33 (nineteen years ago)

Just got a copy of Asides Besides in the mail! Nothing else to add than that - maybe surprised "Why Is It So Hard?" hasn't been mentioned too - a nice little tune.

― erv (Abe Froman), Saturday, 16 September 2006 01:05 (nineteen years ago)

video for "i believe in you" that's pretty damn amazing. not sure what the source is.

― fortunate hazel (f. hazel), Saturday, 16 September 2006 01:22 (nineteen years ago)

Nick S' last post: Gotta correct you on this one; the piano-chords that end Runeii are my favourite Talk Talk moment, the absolute culmination, closure and triumphant peace of a career spent exercising the bandmembers' profoundest musical theories. There's something just so certain, so final about the manner in which the quiet chord sequence waits a few seconds, and then repeats itself, accenting the final few notes. It has no other place to go, because it has no need to, any more.

― Space Gourmand (Haberdager), Saturday, 16 September 2006 11:52 (nineteen years ago)

six months pass...

So anyway. EMI has rereleased a singles comp yet again, this time the Natural History comp they already did about fifteen years back. But this time as a bonus there's a DVD with all the videos they made during that stretch -- an amusing mix; you might find most of 'em on YouTube I'd guess but it wasn't surprising to learn that all the interesting ones were done by Tim Pope.

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 00:26 (nineteen years ago)

This truly is ILM at its very, very, very finest. A half-hour excellently spent, with nary a pointless zing or snarky put-down in sight, just intellectual debate and a sense of the magic that music can work, which is surely the reason we all ended up on this board in the first place.

Moreover, the Bark Psychosis subplot had a happy ending after all: wasn't Codename: Dustsucker an absolute peach of a record?!

― unfished business, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 01:25 (nineteen years ago)

Found this on YouTube, their last ever TV appearance

That's really bizarre and almost uncomfortable to watch after the music network hostess's chirpiness. You can really tell that Mark Hollis really doesn't want to be there.

Moreover, the Bark Psychosis subplot had a happy ending after all: wasn't Codename: Dustsucker an absolute peach of a record?!

Yes, I think it's pretty damn good. Mind you, I was pretty fucking skeptical about the return from the ashes band with one original member cutting a new record under the original name after a questionable sideline as a drum-n-bass artist aspect. I was happily proven wrong.

― William Selman, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 03:26 (nineteen years ago)

Natural History is always a great listen. "Today" is such a fucking good song, esp. the "belle melissima" part.

― Curt1s Stephens, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 03:39 (nineteen years ago)

i, for one, find any comparison with radiohead rather insulting to talk talk. and i'm not some radiohead hater... i understand some of the similarities, but Talk Talk are so elegiac, lush, and gripping. i find radiohead much less so.

that said, it took me a while to come to Talk Talk. it was only whilst in the backseat of a car, idling in traffic, after spending a day on an abandoned beach, that i finally realized the brilliance. Spirit of Eden is probably one of my favorite albums of all time, without a doubt.

― the table is the table, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 04:40 (nineteen years ago)

You might want to read all the posts a touch more carefully there, the table.

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 04:50 (nineteen years ago)

I was in Virgin in Exeter the other day and the assistant manager ran up to me with the new Natural History and put it in my hand, pointing at the DVD tracklisting. (He's a friend of my brother, and knows I am both a TT fan and a writer of sorts.) I said "Oh" and put it back. No way am I paying £15 for a load of songs I already own and some videos I might watch once when, as Ned points out, YOUTUBE EXISTS. It may be shitty quality, but it's free, and there are Do Make Say Think albums to be bought that I don't already own.

― Scik Mouthy, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 09:17 (nineteen years ago)

To return to the topic, Spirit of Eden is something I can listen to more often than Laughing Stock. Laughing Stock is... it's just the end, isn't it? I know the Hollis record came after and is also beautiful, etcetera, but... in that Mojo piece there was a quote either from Phill Brown or Tim Friese-Green who about the 90-second one-note solo, something like "what do you play after one note? No notes". Laughing Stock is probably the only record I can listen to and think "this is actually profound" - it makes everything else seem very, very trite, whether that be Godspeed You! Black Emperor or The Beatles or Orbital or Fugazi or whatever. On the couple of seriously regretable occasions when my relationship has crumbled to the verge of total disintegration before being built back up again, when I've been at my absolute emotional lowest, Laughing Stock has been the only thing I could stand to listen to. I'm not religious but when Hollis sings "versed in Christ should strength desert me"... fucking hell.

― Scik Mouthy, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 09:34 (nineteen years ago)

Maybe you should have done a submission to the 33 1/3 people. I would have bought it.

― Marcello Carlin, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 10:34 (nineteen years ago)

I've thought about it, but to be honest I don't know that I've got much more to say beyond what I've already written, whether it be here or in the big old thing about SoE at Stylus. How long are the 33 1/3 books? 20,000 words? I'm not sure I could get that much out of one record. UNLESS IT WAS EMBRACE, OBV., HAHA.

― Scik Mouthy, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 10:37 (nineteen years ago)

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