
It's my life, don't you forget,
Caught in the crowd, it never ends.
Talk Talk were a British New Wave band in The '80s known for one of the standout examples of Growing the Beard and successful New Sound Albums in Alternative Rock. But let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet.Their members were as follows:Caught in the crowd, it never ends.
"It's My Life"
- Mark Hollis - vocals, guitar, piano, organ; the chief songwriter and idea guy
- Paul Webb - bass, left in 1988 after The Spirit of Eden
- Lee Harris - drums
- Tim Friese-Greene - "unofficial" member in the sense that he didn't play live or appear in photos, but a key player in the band's transformation; co-wrote songs with Hollis, played keyboards and, most significantly, served as Record Producer
- Simon Brenner - keyboards, left in 1983.
- The Party's Over (1982)
- It's My Life (1984)
- The Colour of Spring (1986)
- Spirit of Eden (1988)
- Laughing Stock (1991)
Trope trope, trope trope, all you wanna do is trope trope:
- Awesome Art: The surrealist album sleeves painted by James Marsh are wonderful to look at.
- The Band Minus the Face: After the split, the bassist and the drummer carried on making music as .O.rang for two albums, with the third one still projected yet unreleased.
- Continuity Nod: They have a few.
- One example, of a sort: The Colour of Spring gives us "I Don't Believe in You"; Spirit of Eden gives us "I Believe in You".
- The last two album covers feature birds in trees. The Laughing Stock artwork gives the birds shapes similar to the Earth's continents; it's subtle, but impossible to unsee once you notice it.
- Epic Rocking: Spirit of Eden included a side-long suite, which lasts for twenty-three minutes. Other songs on their last two albums are also generally quite long, with "After the Flood" (9:38) and "New Grass" (9:40) being particularly noteworthy. The Colour of Spring and Mark Hollis' solo album also have a few examples of this, with the longest on each release being "Time It's Time" (8:14) and "A Life (1895 - 1915)" (8:10), respectively.
- Grief Song: "I Believe in You" was written after Mark Hollis' brother died from a heroin overdose.
- I Am the Band: Mark Hollis became this around Laughing Stock.
- In-Name-Only: Inverted with Mark Hollis' solo record; it's frequently considered a Talk Talk album in all but name, and is considered to comprise a loose trilogy with the band's final two official albums.
- Kids Rock: "Happiness Is Easy".
- New Sound Album: Lots of 'em, and drastically so.
- No Ending: "Ascension Day" cuts off abruptly at the six-minute mark.
- New Wave Music: Their best known style.
- Perishing Alt-Rock Voice: Mark Hollis on Spirit of Eden, Laughing Stock and his self-titled solo album. Might even be a very literal interpretation of this given how quietly he sings on these records, balancing it out with a number of vocal crescendos on each song.
- Post-Rock: Trope Maker on Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock, possibly alongside Slint. Unbuilt Trope applies to a certain extent here.
- Siamese Twin Songs: "The Rainbow", "Eden", and "Desire".
- Title Track: Confusingly, the song "The Colour of Spring" doesn't appear on the album The Colour of Spring; it shows up on Mark Hollis' solo album instead. In fact, only the band's first two albums play this trope straight.
- You Can't Fight Fate: "Life's What You Make It".