•
Rating:
At the dawn of post-rock, on one side there's "Spiderland", and on the other, there's "Laughing Stock" (Verve, 1991), with its understated and elusive existential abstraction, amidst non-linear rhythms and feedback guitars, intimate dynamics, and unanticipated depths. A masterpiece built through the dripping and polychrome layering of sound bands, an uncircumscribable radical jazz-rock work, with vocal melodies no longer tangible, yet so intimate and intertwined with the human soul.
The splendid "Spirit of Eden" (EMI, 1988) marked the environmentalization of pop, post-pop, forcing the song format, crafting an increasingly expanded chamber blues with jazz and whispered psychedelia. A work that presented itself as rarefied and highly evocative.
"The Colour of Spring" (EMI, 1987) extended a pop music deviant from the rules, we would say complex and tormenting, already art rock.
"It’s My Life" (EMI, 1984) managed to be an album of sophisticated electronic pop, thrilling, where synthesizers and traditional instruments served flexible plots and compelling, personal melodies. The songwriting began to operate independently of both contemporaries and archetypes (Roxy Music and Ultravox).
And “The Party's Over” (EMI, 1982)?
It's the debut album, the starting point we reach by reversing the chronological sequence of this remarkable process of evolution and revolution.
British, English, or rather “in quiet desperation”, the Talk Talk formed in 1981 in London, in the Tottenham district. They are Mark Hollis, leader, multi-instrumentalist, singer (a distinctive voice that tears, that scratches the walls of the soul), Paul Webb on bass, Lee Harris on drums, and Simon Brenner on keyboards. The latter would soon abdicate, giving way to producer and multi-instrumentalist Tim Friese–Greene.
“The Party's Over” is a commercial new wave, new romantic album, the pathetic branch led by Duran Duran, from whom they borrowed producer Colin Thurston for the occasion. They released a colorless, dull LP, out of focus, in the name of a conventional and uninspiring synth pop. The extracted singles don't say much: "Mirror Man" (a poor exercise on Depeche style), "Today" (a minor effort) and the acceptable "Talk Talk", with a catchy rhythm emphasized in the lyrics: «I'm tired of listening to you answering me in rhymes/ …/ All you do for me is talk, talk/ talk, talk, talk, talk». The best thing, then, seems to be the sinuous "Have You Heard the News", while the title track harbors Hollis’s good vocal performance that adds depth to the synthesizers so shallow they barely reach the surface. The words dispense a forlorn bitterness: «I am all of what I'm guilty of/ Take this indictment away, Lord/ Name the crime I’m guilty of/ Too much hope I took as virtue».
In summary, we face an interim album, transient, entangled in the syrupy and fatty gloss of new romantic. Yet right here lies the origin of a band in continuous growth, able to become—as time unfolds—influential like few others, puzzling like none other. It’s worth, then, learning where one comes from. And returning here evokes tenderness, where, in every other of their works, we can find wonder.
The album, so to speak, “of the eyes that speak”, also titillates their curious artwork: every cover of theirs will always be intriguing, full of enigmas, symbols, trees, moths, and flamingos. All, truthfully, better than this one.
The Talk Talk gave rise to the inverted apotheosis, the exact opposite of rock bands, which come to dissolution exhausted, while they seal a decade-long cycle (with constant rise and change) strong of two masterpieces.
And to think that Hollis’s beginning was in '78 with the Reaction, the authors of a single, “I Can’t Resist”, a r'n’r clumsy with strained vocal harmonies. The closure will instead be with a sole solo album, the touching self-titled one of '98, then to vanish. Webb and Harris, as .O.Rang, will close shortly after.
As in elegies, “to feel is to fade.”
But we'll still be waiting for you. What else to do?
Waiting for you is justified.
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
01 Talk Talk (03:24)
Well did I tell you before
When I was up
Anxiety was bringing me down
I'm tired of listening to you
Talking in rhymes
Twisting round to think
You're straight down the line
All you do to me is talk talk
Talk Talk
Talk Talk
All you do to me is talk talk
Talk Talk
Talk Talk
All you do to me is talk talk
If every sign that I see is to complete
Then I'm a fool in your game
And all you want to do
Is tell me your lies
Won't you show the other side
You're just wasting my time
All you do to me is talk talk
Talk Talk
Talk Talk
All you do to me is talk talk
Talk Talk
Talk Talk
All you do to me is talk talk
When every choice that I make is yours
Keep telling me what's right and what's wrong
Don't you ever stop to think about me
I'm not that blind to see
That you've been cheating on me
You're laughing at me when I'm up
I see you when you're crying for me
When I'm down
I see you when you're laughing for me
When I'm up
I see you when you're crying for me
All you do to me is talk talk
Talk Talk
Talk Talk
All you do to me is talk talk
Talk Talk
Talk Talk
02 It's So Serious (03:23)
I've given everything
With nothing in return
I'm filled with images
That play on every word
No-one to tell me
There's a cloud before my eyes
Not only broken,
I don't know the reason why
It's so serious
This endless sea of tears
The feeling that I'll drown
I'd try to catch them
But they're sure to touch the ground
My world of emptiness
A child without a toy
Forgiving anything
Restore me to my joy
It's so serious
03 Today (03:29)
Cover me with shades of disbelief
Can happiness be someone else's dream
Numbers call to spell my name
Move about as values change
Catch me if you can
But don't delay
Today, today
It's a dream away
Governed by the title on the wall
Commit me to a life within a fool
Happiness can often bleed
Beggars lay among the sheep
Let me take the choice
The sermon pleads
Today, today
It's a dream away
Visions in my cell begin to bread
Was everything a fact of what I read
Excuse my while l spell my name
Boat and ship could sound the same
Catch me if you can
But don't delay
Today, today
It's a dream away
Belle Malissima
Today, today
It's a dream away
04 The Party's Over (06:11)
The party's over
I never thought you'd stay
The love of laughter
My truth's no longer sane
The party's over
Much older than you'd say
THIS FRIEND OF NO-ONE
TIME, CREASES ON YOUR FACE
Take a look at the kids
I've been losing track
This crime of being uncertain
Of your love
Is all I'm guilty of
The party's over
I never thought you'd stay
A style of reason
This life of masquerade
Take a look at the kids
I've been losing track
This crime of being uncertain
Of your love
Is all I'm guilty of
Take this punishment away Lord
Name the crime I'm guilty of
Too much hope I've seen as virtue
Name the crime I'm guilty of
05 Hate (03:58)
RELAX YOUR STARE
It's laughing in my face
My foes beware
I'm tired of losing grace
The child's not there
The priest is losing faith
Defile my care
And stumble to the flames
People crying, People crying
My confusion
Are there illusions?
.... Hate
THE DICE WON'T LOSE
They've everything to gain
Devout prepare
The stones along my grave
People crying, People crying
My confusion
Are there illusions?
.... Hate
Don't say a word
If I've been away too long
I found out it's wrong
I found out ...
I DON'T NEED HATE
06 Have You Heard the News? (05:06)
I'm picking up again
Waint it got too much
After the accident
It could feel no worse
I turned around and saw him hit the ground
Alittle earlier, it was a game
I guess the barrier
Must have dropped away
I don't like to read the news
D'you know anything I'm going through
Did you see my photograph
It was on page ten
I swore to everyone
I'm not to blame
I turned around and saw him hit the ground
A little earlier it was a game
i'm so disposable
you can throw me away
I don't like to read the news
D'you know anything I'm going through
Wat a fool I've been
Didn't get to him in time
"What's been happening?"
Its so hard to sleep at night
Its so hard to sleep at night
To sleep at night
I don't like to read the news
D'you know anything I'm going through
09 Candy (04:39)
This sure is some kind of party
It's so useful
Surrounds my life with excuses
For what I choose to lose
And my name
Doesn't look the same to me
And inside
Don't you know I feel so bad
Candy,
When I tried to turn away
To feel new again
My emotion cost me pain
Did I look the same
When I think about the times
That I laughed away the idea you'd cheat me
But look again
What do you say 'That's my name'
AND I HOPE THAT I'VE KEPT YOU AMUSED
TO WIPE THAT SPIT RIGHT OFF MY BOOTS
And when I'm home and thinking in the dark
I hope that none of this has had to go too far
When it gets too late
To see me any other way
And it gets so hard to hold on
To everything that I want so bad
Loading comments slowly
