I'm tired of listening to you talking in rhymes

Continuing my trip back through the 1990 album charts.

08/07/90 : Natural History : The Very Best Of - Talk Talk

Ooooh - a bit of controversy.  What AM I thinking picking a best-of?!?  Does it sail over the cultural relevance high bar that I set for such things?!?  Well, no it probably doesn't - so I've only gone and broken the rules!  What could have caused such a thing?!?

My initial thoughts were that, despite this being a very fine collection of tracks, it didn't quite do enough to warrant inclusion so I sadly moved over it and planned to listen to Anita Baker's Compositions which is really not a great album title - you might as well call it Songs (and yes, both Luther Vandross and Regina Spektor have done exactly that).  However, somewhat bizarrely, this album (which appears to be completely uncontroversial) isn't available on Amazon, so I was wondering if that was a sign that Talk Talk should be the choice after all.  

Once again though, I talked myself out of it because Anita was on Spotify, so with a heavy heart I settled down to attempt to enjoy her smoooooth sounds.  But, I'm afraid/pleased to say that a combination of Spotify refusing to play the album as an album (I had to select each track in turn) and Anita making exactly the same sounds on each track drove me back to Talk Talk - I really wouldn't have had anything to say about her album, so let's call it fate that brought us here (I own some Talk Talk material, but not this album - 6/26)

Having said I wouldn't have anything to say about Anita, I don't really have loads to say about Talk Talk, but it was lovely to listen to all their stuff again - if you're not aware of the band and you like the general 80s sound then this is well worth checking out.  My favourites are "Talk Talk", "Such A Shame" and "Life's What You Make It" but the album has a high quality bar throughout and shows some interesting progression - particularly towards the end where we get to the stuff off Spirit Of Eden, which is an album which has grown in reputation as time has progressed (but I have yet to listen to because I'm a heathen).

We're at #6 in the charts this week on their sixth week of a very creditable 21 week run, with it having peaked at #3 in its second week.  The top five this week were Pavarotti, Elton John, The Rolling Stones, NKOTB and The Beach Boys and the highest new entry was Anita Baker at #7.  Interestingly there's another best-of at #8 that I'm tempted to break the rules for but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.  Another reason I'm pleased I got to listen to this is that it's probably the only time we'll get to meet Talk Talk - The Colour Of Spring reached #8 in 1986, so we might get to hear that, but the odds are against it.

Wikipedia doesn't have a lot on the album - it was released by EMI without any input from the band because they'd fallen out by then (the courts got involved).  The band weren't happy but accepted they couldn't do anything about it, but when EMI tried again with a remix album, then back to the courts everyone went (which the band won).  This album was surprisingly successful globally though, selling over a million copies.  I was also somewhat surprised to hear that "Talk Talk" is technically a cover version because it was first recorded by Mark Hollis's previous band, The Reaction, as "Talk Talk Talk Talk" (which all feels very meta).

"Customers also listened to" Ultravox, Simple Minds, Depeche Mode and Japan - some fine 80s sounds there.  But, despite their relatively low profile (#13 was the highest they got in the singles chart), Talk Talk produced some of the finest 80s sounds out there and if you're not aware of them then you should check this out.

01/07/90 - ANOTHER greatest hits album?!?
15/07/90 - Dull, dull, dull