Talk Talk (RIP Mark Hollis)

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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)

Two great albums in the beginning. "The Colour Of Spring" was OK too although the addition of more conventional instruments didn't fit in too well. As for the rest, "Spirit Of Eden" is kind of interesting, but also way too weird. And "Laughing Stock" is plain unlistenable.

― Geir Hongro, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 12:06 (nineteen years ago)

No surprises from Geir there.

― Michael Jones, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 12:35 (nineteen years ago)

not to be picky, but the much-heralded 'one-note solo' is actually TWO notes. as i've already said, the true 'just so' moment-before-silence is the end of the album, which is just perfect.

re: these albums, i was lucky enough to have a father who had 'em BOTH on opposite sides of a C-90, and moreover who played 'em with much regularity on long car-journeys (especially SoE). I'd already memorised the whole thing aged about 9, which seems a pretty decent TT headstart in anyone's book. Listening to the whole of SoE when negotiating an extremely tricky mountain pass in the dead of night during one of our Cypriot holidays is an experience I shall never, ever forget.

oh, and i'm currently listening to catherine wheel's 'thunderbird', which is basically a power-pop take on late-period TT, and which rules exceptionally hard.

― unfished business, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 12:53 (nineteen years ago)

ok I know we aren't supposed to, but in case someone wants to, my rip of this on my ipod is completely corrupted and I need to hear spirit of eden right now but I'm at work. so this is a plea.

― akm, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 16:50 (nineteen years ago)

what "this"?

― jed_, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 17:01 (nineteen years ago)

spirit of eden

― akm, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 17:22 (nineteen years ago)

rather than sending it, i shall describe it for you.

A single horn (trumpet?) sounds.

Flourish of violins and other assorted strings. A low sound, much like a tuba, is also detectable.

The horn sounds again, a few semitones lower. It begins to play a slow tune.

Enter piano and some rain effects. The low tuba thing goes on.

Ethereal moans and wail permeate the song.

Suddenly, an oscillating, windy pumping noise fills the speakers, dying away as soon as it arrives. As it returns for the second time, however, a bluesy guitar riff bursts in unexpectedly.

Along with a distorted harmonica.

Some muted percussion is also audible.

Hollis begins to sing: "Oh yeah, the world's turned upside down..."

Shall I continue?

― unfished business, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 17:29 (nineteen years ago)

No.

― Michael Jones, Wednesday, 21 March 2007 20:10 (nineteen years ago)

two months pass...

Bump, as I am trying to write a short para about LS, and may just lift what I wrote two months ago.

― Scik Mouthy, Tuesday, 22 May 2007 20:47 (nineteen years ago)

i liked that ldn song

― 696, Tuesday, 22 May 2007 20:49 (nineteen years ago)

one month passes...

http://www.qwantz.com/fanart/talktalk-talktalk.png

― stephen, Saturday, 30 June 2007 01:25 (eighteen years ago)

At last: a new insight into Talk Talk.

― Naive Teen Idol, Saturday, 30 June 2007 01:41 (eighteen years ago)

two months pass...

Why was the 1990 compilation of 80's singles such a hit? It went Top 3 and it's just struck me how incredibly odd that was. It was their biggest album! And gave them a big hit! Did EMI really push it marketing tv-advert-wise or something? Was it just a weird fluke?

― pisces, Friday, 21 September 2007 22:35 (eighteen years ago)

it's a great compilation

― Curt1s Stephens, Friday, 21 September 2007 23:08 (eighteen years ago)

I was just searching for this thread and while I was reading it, it popped up on New Answers, weird. Great thread, obv, but while the idea of comparing Spirit Of Eden with Laughing Stock is laudable and (on most of this thread) illuminating, the idea of ranking them is a monstrous dud. My favourite comment among many compelling comments here is Nick Southall's:

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.

As OTM as anything I've seen on ILM.

― Lostandfound, Saturday, 22 September 2007 02:32 (eighteen years ago)

one month passes...

If there are such things as heaven and hell, Spirit of Eden is the one record I'll be bringing. Regardless of which place I'll end up at...

― ConnieXX, Thursday, 1 November 2007 19:57 (eighteen years ago)

does anyone have the SACD version of Spirit?

― akm, Thursday, 1 November 2007 21:14 (eighteen years ago)

I had Talk Talk: The Collection on the other day. The song 'It's getting late in the evening' is awesome.

'everybody's laughing'

― CaptainLorax, Thursday, 1 November 2007 21:32 (eighteen years ago)

The only Talk Talk albums you really need:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e9/Talktalkalbumcover.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/48/ItsMyLife.jpg

― Geir Hongro, Friday, 2 November 2007 13:38 (eighteen years ago)

Tasteful sleeves!

The one I like best is "The Colour Of Spring" - the ideal blend of the poppier early TT with the more profound later stuff. I wish they'd stayed with that sound for one more LP before they went hush-hush.

Actually, with Spirit Of Eden, they should have renamed themselves Hush Hush really.

― PhilK, Friday, 2 November 2007 14:29 (eighteen years ago)

one year passes...

jesus i believe in you is gorgeous

― Dominique, Friday, 5 December 2008 03:22 (seventeen years ago)

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