I've got a world class blog to run here, do you mind if I return to the music?
Welcome to a brand new year of "Happy 25th Birthdays!" 1984 was another outstanding year for Waist High music, let us begin with the second album by Talk Talk.
It's My Life was the beginning of the relationship between Mark Hollis and producer Tim Friese-Green, the pair later responsible for 1988's Spirit of Eden, an album some say is one of the most haunting and beautiful ever made.
"Friese-Greene's production imbued the material with an ambitious sound and arrangement which, though less obviously commercial than before, seemed far more natural for the band. Guitars also appeared on a Talk Talk record for the first time (courtesy of ace sessionman Robbie McIntosh), though in fact the distinctly Floydian solos were performed on treated keyboards. Despite its promise, however, the LP was still the work of a band in transition - no doubt one reason why it stalled at a disappointing #35 in the U.K. Another was that the group, already deeply embarrassed by EMI's past image-mongering, now began to cultivate a resolute non-image which would only deepen as time passed."
It's My Life's lead single, the great "It's My Life," was released in January 1984 and started Talk Talk's "drift from straightforward Synthpop sound into more experimental albums. Both the song and the album are synthpop, but their instrumentation is richer" than in their debut album.
"There are two versions of the video for 'It's My Life.' The first, envisioned by director Tim Pope as a statement against the banality of lip-synching, consists almost entirely of footage from nature documentaries, interspersed with shots of Talk Talk lead singer Mark Hollis standing in the midst of the London Zoo, with his mouth pointedly shut tight and often obscured by hand-drawn animated lines. The second version, recorded at the behest of EMI, consisted of the entirety of the original video projected on a green screen behind Hollis and his two bandmates as they lip-synched and mimed the song, deliberately poorly and with comic exaggerated gestures. Hollis was 'pissed off' in that shoot."
The second single from the album, "Such a Shame," reached the Top 10 in several European countries, and went to #1 in Italy and Switzerland.
It's My Life track listing:
"Dum Dum Girl" (Friese-Greene/Hollis)
"Such a Shame" (Hollis)
"Renee" (Hollis)
"It's My Life" (Friese-Greene/Hollis)
"Tomorrow Started" (Hollis)
"The Last Time" (Curnow/Hollis)
"Call in the Night Boy" (Brenner/Harris/Hollis/Webb)
"Does Caroline Know?" (Friese-Greene/Hollis)
"It's You" (Hollis)
Material: Within Without & wikipedia.org
