Talk Talk (RIP Mark Hollis)

You crazy, dawg.

Maybe, but Laughing Stock is still a record I dislike. If you handed me "In a silent way" and "Laughing stock" and asked me to do a blind taste test I probably couldn't tell which one was recorded in 1969 in a day and which one was recorded in 1989 in eight months. But on "Laughing stock" I feel the lack of focus to be suffocating, like, desperate, like these people grasping at straws...

AND like many other people round here my enjoyment of a record is influenced by "legacy" and "backstory" and SO I'm bringing a whole lot of baggage to the table, i.e. the memory of a decade of instrumental post-rock-- lots of it being totally awesome-- but lots of it being unapologetically watered-down new classical and jazz and was lauded and played to death by everybody. Not for me.

ok

laaaaaaame

Never really felt it to lack "focus"--if anything it seems pretty single-mindedly pursuing a certain effect, if a diffusive one.

Cool talking to you guys!

"Laughing Stock" could have been recorded more quickly. And "Pet Sounds" probably could have been recorded in a couple of takes, too. (God only knows, I've seen that album done live, start to finish, but the live band had a great blueprint: the finished album, in all its fussy, studio-perfect glory.) With Talk Talk, the voyage and mythology is part of its appeal. Not just what "Laughing Stock" is, but how this New Romantic band got to that point, and more specifically the number of permutations "Laughing Stock" itself probably went through to evolve into what it is.

And "In A Silent Way" (for example) may have been recorded during one session, but that's not the same as saying the album only took one day to make.

xp

hhaha I love both IASW and laughing stock, would never think to compare them though they share some...moods

though I find myself com to spirit of Eden a lot more lately

coming back to...

I don't dislike the process in itself-- how could I? I'd hate almost every record-- but it rests with the knowledge that This is the album that required this process. It's like, really? Plus: I can hear you guys struggling to make it work. If the album sounded the exact same but they practiced it up before the studio, tracked it in a week, I'd probably feel differently-- but then, if that was the case, how would that record fit within their "voyage", you know?

Albums I really dislike are few and far between, but typically, after a little verbalization and distance, I realize that it's not the album itself I dislike but something extra-musical. Wasteful use of time and/or money, exploitative aspects, singer hits women, etc.

"you guys struggling" = Hollis and co., not you guys

Last Saturday I went for a late night walk listening first to "Laughing Stock" and then "IASW". That was awesome. Both albums are of course absolutely amazingly stunning. It was as fitting a soundtrack for a walk (and my particular mood that night) that one could ever find. I have no further point. Just felt like mentioning it, since both albms were discussed.

i will forever associate talk talk with coke-y yuppie new york discos and michael keaton. in a good way!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0hbhf8TvF4

damn, why is my video not in a nice lil youtube box like everyone else's? pls explain

laughing stock is hella focused, the focus is groove

Yeah, bass part in "New Grass" rules, though you gotta turn it up to feel it.

damn, why is my video not in a nice lil youtube box like everyone else's? pls explain

I think you need to take the 's' out of 'https'

again, i thank you anagram, and proudly present to all of you: michael keaton in coke-y yuppie new york disco, with talk talk talk talking in the background.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0hbhf8TvF4

Early 1978 version of "Talk Talk" from Hollis' first band The Reaction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aniltOIzzv8

mark hollis was in a punk band? i didn't know that. pretty great version btw.

Here's their first single (also from 1978)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llm1tiEePLc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XsdbcvnMvA

Found a mint copy of Colour of Spring in shrink wrap but opened for $2 today.

A year or two ago it seemed I could find the Talk Talk 12"s for between 1-5 bucks. Just been looking to fill in some gaps and the prices have gone up pretty significantly. They're now about 8-20 depending on the single.

Is this supply or demand, I wonder? What happened a year or two ago to alter the market for Talk Talk singles? I only have two or three Talk Talk singles, but I purchased them all around ten years ago and even then they were in that 1-5 price range (big resurgence of Talk Talk interest between 2000–2004). My suspicion would have been that there would be an average price increase in 2005 or 2006, but not a year or two ago...

I was wondering the same thing. I think it's mostly the overall rise in vinyl pricing mostly, but it could legitimately be a decrease in supply over time. All the 1-5 dollar singles were snatched up after the resurgence and now there are just fewer of them in the shops.

Surely there can't be just me that loves the first two Talk Talk albums? No!?

I mean, that The Colour Of Spring, Spirit Of Eden and Laughing Stock are works of genius is pretty much a given, but in my opinion I think that Talk Talk in their early phase were still several leagues ahead of many acts that were attempting the same thing.

heard this the other day for the first times in ages - a tim friese-greene production from the same era, that's like a perfect cross between early talk talk and um, kajagoogoo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80CInBBXYeU

i loved that song. and i'm actually kind of ashamed to admit that and i am almost never ashamed to admit things like that.

and yes i have heard the entire Blue Zoo album.

"Surely there can't be just me that loves the first two Talk Talk albums? No!?"

i love it all. from first to last.

when you read about the record company wanting talk talk to be the next duran duran, you can kind of see where they were going when you hear blue zoo. except blue zoo weren't the next duran duran either, they were just the precursor to king

they used to play that song on the college radio station i grew up with. they played "Love & Pride" a lot too. also the first place i ever heard "talk talk".

they turned me on to so much. first place i ever heard "like dust" by passion puppets. still one of my favorite songs ever. AND the first place i ever heard "slang teacher". can't thank them enough for that. lifelong wide boy awake fan that i am.

so happy to see that there is FINALLY a HQ version of like dust on youtube. thanks, Stiff!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E-yyvkQSwo

The video to 'Talk Talk' (the song) is very "early Duran" visually, but even at that stage Talk Talk seemed to have a musical sophistication that Duran Duran just didn't. This isn't to knock Duran Duran at all as I like the first two Duran Duran albums, but Talk Talk seemed to be far more skilled as instrumentalists, even then.

they used to play that song on the college radio station i grew up with. they played "Love & Pride" a lot too. also the first place i ever heard "talk talk".

needs some freur and kissing the pink for the flush

*comedy toilet sound*

i don't think i've heard passion puppets before, kind of like the new wave nephilim thing they do there

Doot-doot!

yeah they played doot doot a ton too. and they made me a lifelong fan of kissing the pink. they would play "the last film" all the time which was cool and not the obvious "love lasts forever". they got on the KTP bandwagon later.

Naked is totally canon for me. so weird that their NEXT album i never found until the 90's. it was like it never existed in the states. whereas, Naked was everywhere. and then obviously the KTP album. which was big here.

love the last film. i shamelessly love all this sort of stuff tbh

(i mean the second album was never released in the U.S. which basically explains its absence. but nobody i knew had it and they didn't play any of it on the station i listened to.)

blue zoo gets the shame because if i can't imagine playing it loudly around other people...then it gets the shame. playing it loudly now would be like cranking roman holiday singles in 2015.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWgwx8ZFVCI

^ would totally blast this in the car if i could be sure my wife wasn't carrying something that could be used as a weapon

look at those teeth! so shiny

had a weird moment last week when dâm-funk dropped a fashiøn tune into a mix i was listening to. they were pretty bad though

Oh god, yeah, Fashion were terrible - I think I got about three tracks into Fabrique when I checked that record out and that was more than enough.