Customer Reviews

It's My Life

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This was the first Talk Talk album I ever bought. It is still one of my favorite albums ever. I have rarely been moved in the way that "It's My Life" does. The first five tracks on this album are so brilliant, they will leave you speechless. It is hard to find words for what tracks like these do to my soul. This is a wonderful, wonderful album, and I recommend it with my whole heart to anyone who is brave enough to take the word of a complete stranger. I hope that you will be as overcome by this album as myself.

No band I know transformed themselves as completely as Talk Talk. Many, such as Genesis, changed themselves from from progressive to commercial as the financial demands of alimony and palimony mounted up. But very few, save Talk Talk, went in the opposite direction, from commercial pop to seriously serious rock.

This album charts the beginning of that transformation. Curiously, it's currently only available on import, like the rest of the band's original albums except for LAUGHING STOCK, which is definitely their most obscure but possibly their masterpiece.

With such outstanding tracks as 'Such a Shame' and 'Renee', it was a crossover album that would appeal both to progressive fans who sought the next Roxy Music and to the New Romantic movement (where Talk Talk was originally positioned by their label).

It is extraordinary that Talk Talk started in precisely the same segment as Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet, but here's the evidence. If you like this, then you should be wonderfully overwhelmed by the two albums that followed it, COLOUR OF SPRING and SPIRIT OF EDEN.

Talk Talk are one of those strange anomalies in the recording industry; their music and progressive albums just got better and more in tune with who they really were as musicians. While Talk Talk's debut album "Party's Over" was very much the plastic form of so many of the New Romantic bands of the early 80's, there were slight hints of something else. "It's My Life" has many of the same sensibilites of that plastic 80's sound, but you can completely hear elements of their next album "The Colour of Spring". This became the trend for Talk Talk; to show future glimpses of where they were really heading in each album. I'm not sure I could name all that many bands that did this. Although this album only gets 4.5 stars (and not many bands can even lay claim to that) it's their next three albums "The Colour of Spring", "Spirit of Eden", and "Laughing Stock" that not only get 5 stars each, they are also some of the most absolutely unique music you'll ever hear. It's a real listening experience to start at the beginning (with "Party's Over") and work your way through all 5 albums. Wonderful stuff.

An album's greatness has a lot to do with what space you are in when you first hear it. This disc takes me back to 1984 when my life couldn't go wrong. But, I have to say that even if life had sucked back then, this would have pulled me out. I can't say enough about how great it is. I know that all of you philosophical self appointed music critics out there go for this band's last two albums but the feel good electro pop of their first three are truly a lot of fun. Isn't that what music should be anyway? My advice would be to wait until you're having the best day ever and then buy this to celebrate with.

Talk Talk was a standout band from the 1980's and this cd ranks as one of the best from this decade. Why lead singer, Mark Hollis, drastically changed his direction in music(think Muzak) is beyond me - especially when Talk Talk produced such inspiring tracks like "Living in Another World", "Life's What You Make It" and of course "It's My Life", "Such a Shame" and "Tomorrow Started" from this cd. Talk Talk's introspective lyrics and music simply haunt you.

From this cd - "Tomorrow Started"(catch the fabulous live version on "Natural History CD")lifts depressed/uncertain feelings to the surface. You reflect on life and what's important.

"Such A Shame" again hooks you immediately. Every time you listen, you're amazed at Mark's soulful vocals and the incredible music that supports distinctive lyrics.

The first three cds from Talk Talk epitomize what is the best of the 1980's and "It's My Life" cd ranks at the top.

Now if only Mark and the rest of the Talk Talk band would regroup and enter the 21st Century with a contemporary approach to their eighties success.

Talk Talk is one of my favorite bands of the 1980s, and this album makes my "Top Five" from that decade, along with Simple Minds' "New Gold Dream" and "Sparkle in the Rain"; Chris Isaak's self-titled LP, and Prefab Sprouts' "Two Wheels Good." I was hooked from the very start with "It's My Life," mesmerized by the lush production, energy and emotion of the songs. Of course, there is Mark Hollis' melancholy and introspective voice to pull you in further. Ironically, I still can't make out many of the words he sings. Liner notes would have been a help. However, if you accept his voice as just another instrument, as I did, not much is lost. It is beautiful music nevertheless. Where this band went after this recording is a disappointment. They seemed peaked for greatness, then they took a left turn in their style and lost me and many others, I'm sure. I always wondered if drugs or contracts had anything to do with it, or just lack of interest. What ever the reason, it's too bad. "Colour of Spring" was only marginally coherent and sold dismally. If you're looking for the best from this band and a solid '80s europop classic, "It's My Life" is it.

This 2nd Talk Talk CD has a reputation of being shimmery 80s synth-pop, but while the genius single It's My Life, certainly could be described this way, the majority of the album is slow, moody tracks that aren't anyone's idea of party music. Even singles like Such A Shame and Dum Dum Girl are a bit on the dreary side.

Good songs, but it lacks cohesion and doesn't work as a complete listening experience. The tracks just don't gel with each other.