Talk Talk is quite an esoteric band when it comes to discussing their legacy and influence. If you ask most people about the band, especially those who grew up in the ’80s, they’ll most likely know about them through such hits as “Talk Talk, “It’s My Life,” “Life’s What You Make It, ” and “Living In Another World.” And if you asked any other person about them who HASN’T heard of them, chances are they’ve probably heard of them without even knowing it, and that’s because of No Doubt’s cover of “It’s My Life.” But then there’s that other collective group of people who marvel over their diversely mercurial body of work and are still baffled by how a group like Talk Talk could go from making synth-cluttered new wave music to inadvertently pioneering a sub-genre now known as “post-rock” with their last two albums, 1989’s Spirit of Eden and 1991’s Laughing Stock.
Listening to any of the aforementioned Talk Talk albums is not just an entertaining experience but also an overwhelming spiritual one. The sounds, textures, timbres, and instrumentation that proliferate throughout are entirely unlike their epochs. With elements of jazz, avant-garde, classical, krautrock, impressionism, and ambient dominating their creative integrity in these two masterful works of art, it’s still no wonder why they’re still discussed and analyzed today. And as great as their earlier records are, they are but an afterthought compared to the lavished experimentalism of their final musical statements.
Talk Talk’s impact can be felt in all quarters of modern indie and alternative music. Radiohead is a band that comes to mind when comparing bands that broke ground. Mark Hollis’s inventive and forward-thinking musicality puts him in the pantheon of creative visionaries like Brian Wilson, David Bowie, The Beatles, Prince, Phil Spector, and Miles Davis. So, in honor of him, we present this list of fantastic songs by one of the most underrated bands ever.
# 10 – The Last Time
This deep-cut track, off of their 1984 album It’s My Life, has a real Echo and the Bunnymen vibe underneath its bouncy synth. It’s infectiously foreboding but with a hook that feels right at home in a nightclub. This is also the only track on the album where bassist Paul Webb doesn’t play; Mike Oldfield’s bassist, Phil Spalding, fills in instead.
# 9 -Talk Talk
When people tend to reflect on the New Romantic period of 1980s music, this hit single is one of many that embodied it. It’s loud, funky, slinky, fun, and sure to get you dancing when played in the proper setting. Lyrically, “Talk Talk” could be interpreted as an aggressive shot at any person trying to screw you over or play with your emotions; this could apply to both men AND women. This was the second single released off of The Party’s Over.
# 8 – It’s My Life
This is one of the best pop songs ever put to wax, and because of Gwen Stefani and No Doubt, it finally reached a much wider audience over here in the States; it caused a sudden resurgence in Talk Talk’s popularity. It’s a good cover and version, no doubt (no pun intended), but the original just has a certain enchantment to it, thanks to Mark Hollis, Lee Harris, and Paul Webb.
This is classic pre-artsy Talk Talk, an anthemic repudiation of an unfaithful spouse…or at least that’s how I construe it. Whatever the tune’s about, it possesses a pervasive euphony that’s still as popular today as it was over thirty years ago.
# 7 – Life’s What You Make It
Now, here’s where our list starts excavating into the beginning of Talk Talk’s creative peak. “Life’s What You Make It” was the lead single off their 1985 album, The Colour of Spring. The album, especially this song, marked the genesis of a newly formed band that was in full control of their musical output. This is art pop with a confident bluesy edge to it.
Hollis and keyboardist/producer Tim Friese-Greene conceived the song at the last minute, with a drum pattern apparently influenced by Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill.” “Life’s What You Make It,” as well as the next song on this list, melded Talk Talk into a group capable of making tasteful music.
Read More: Top 10 Kate Bush Songs
# 6 – Living in Another World
This cyclic movement disguised as pop is one of the most mind-boggling yet addictive songs because it cascades you with multilayered arrangements not typically heard in a mainstream setting. It plays like a progressive pop tune, with droning piano and synths painted over jangling guitars. Still, it veers into art rock territory with a harmonica wailing away after each chorus. Mark Hollis said that the modal jazz of Miles Davis and 20th-century French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre inspired him. It should also be noted that Steve Winwood played organ on this song.
This period for Talk Talk would mark the end of their new wave/synth-pop phase. They would undergo a transitional stage from here to cement their legacy as a highly influential art rock band.
# 5 – Desire
And here’s where we begin, people. This is where Talk Talk rejected its image as a formulaic pop act and transformed it into an experimental behemoth. 1989’s Spirit of Eden showcased the band, especially Mark Hollis, as an inimitable intellectual of musical ideas and creations. Everybody will tell you this is the holy scripture regarding “post-rock.” And for those who don’t know what post-rock is, it’s a sub-genre of experimental rock that seeks to use traditional rock instrumentals as a foundation for texture and sound rather than standard melody and chord progressions.
With “Desire,” there’s a quiet ocean of softness amid its guitar vibration, with saxophones wailing sweetly against this slow-grooving bassline before erupting into a frantic yet lovely collage of noise rock. Tell me you can’t listen to this and not hear, OK, Computer era Radiohead clawing its way out.
Read More: Top 10 Radiohead Songs
# 4 – Ascension Day
When 1991’s Laughing Stock came out, it was entirely overlooked by the general public, like its predecessor. And that’s only because there was nothing like it for its time; you could drop this album in the ’60s, ’70s, or even now, and it still wouldn’t lose its luster. This record is an artistic statement meant to demonstrate the power and dynamics of “quiet” as a primary form of “loudness.” But while there is a backbone of post-rock holding the anatomy in place, there’s also an uninhibited level of krautrock and avant-jazz that lingers in this album as well, and that’s evident with Ascension Day.
Like the rest of the album, this song was built around hours of improvisation, as well as cutting and pasting specific parts together to create the final product you hear. That’s why the music cuts off abruptly at the end; that isn’t your speakers malfunctioning.
# 3 -The Rainbow
And that is so fascinating about these two albums: they were the product of hours upon hours of improvisation. Mark Hollis and Tim Friese-Greene brought in a dozen outside musicians and recorded them jamming, and after it was all said and done, they would go back and find which little segment of said jam they liked the best and spliced it into the composition. But every extraterrestrial sound and melody on these albums feels so structured, as if they’re taking you on a fantastical voyage through an auditory Utopia that you wished didn’t last forty minutes.
Such is the case with “The Rainbow,” the opening track from Spirit of Eden. This song gave birth to the post-rock categorization that would become the template for bands like Sigur Ros, Stereolab, and Mogwai. But then there’s also a hint of Kid A-era Radiohead sprinkled in there. This song, like the rest of the album, is meditative catharsis.
# 2 – After the Flood
Listening to this nine-minute epic from Laughing Stock is so nostalgic for me because it just takes you back to a time when things were relatively carefree and innocent, but it also somewhat retains that “’90s vibe” to it. But that’s not to say it isn’t a puzzling song for its day. It carries on this beautiful keyboard motif throughout, but about halfway through, it spazzes out and goes into this Sonic Youth-esque wall of noise and feedback before returning to its driving theme. This brilliant piece of jazz/alt-rock/indie/dream pop/noise came from the same group who did “It’s My Life;” let that sink in.
# 1 – New Grass
Words can’t even describe this song; it’s one of the most divine creations to every sprout from human consciousness. I can’t stress this enough: Laughing Stock is one of the greatest albums ever. Hollis and company broke new ground with this record, and each listen gets even better than the last.
With a song like “New Grass,” it’s simply confounding that Mark Hollis and Talk Talk don’t get the credit they truly deserve; yes, they started as an 80’s pop unit, but that’s what makes their metamorphosis monumental. Some may find the music pretentious or self-indulgent, but if you sit down and at least listen to this song, you’ll realize that the music exists to move you; it makes you realize that reality is truly an indecipherable wonder where things like this make it worth living in.
Top 10 Talk Talk Songs article published on Classic RockHistory.com© 2024
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