Talk Talk

Thousands of words and thoughts have been written and said about Talk Talk: from the historic evergreens featured on the album “It’s My Life” to the complex harmonies that began to emerge on the sumptuous “The Colour Of Spring”, not to mention the volumes and endless web pages devoted to decoding every nook and cranny of the diptych made up of “Spirits Of Eden” and “Laughing Stock”, true cornerstones that, together with Mark Hollis’s self-titled solo album, laid crucial groundwork for what would later be identified as the post-rock genre.

Few, perhaps very few, however, have bothered to give proper space to the official opening chapter of their story, the album “The Party’s Over”, which had the crucial task of marking their debut on the synth-pop and new romantic scene of the early 1980s.

The best way to make up for this gap is offered by the anniversary that, right in these very days, marks the fortieth candle on its history, a milestone celebrated by Parlophone with the release of remastered versions of some tracks on digital platforms and the reissue of the vinyl in a variety of colors.

Despite being a record with a pronounced synth-pop sensibility, partly produced, among others, by none other than Colin Thurston, who had shaped the early glories of Duran Duran, Talk Talk's debut album carries an honesty and lyrical depth that were almost entirely absent from most records in circulation at the time.

At the time, Talk Talk were a quartet: alongside Mark Hollis on vocals and piano, Paul Webb on bass and Lee Harris on drums, the lineup also included keyboardist and founding member Simon Brenner, who left the band shortly after the album's release due to disagreements with Hollis over the stylistic direction to pursue – Brenner's more conservative, Hollis's more sophisticated and experimental, a battle that, as is well known, Hollis would go on to win.

Before leaving the group, however, the keyboardist, once again alongside Hollis, was responsible for one final gem left to posterity, the splendid “My Foolish Friend” (1983), which was never included on an official album (except in later compilations) but which became one of the tracks most beloved by fans and by Hollis himself, who always looked askance at the repertoire from this early phase of the band's career.

"The Party's Over" reveals itself as an enticing collection of songs steeped in the delectable taste of synthesizer, bolstered by the thunderous Simmons drums and the sound of fretless bass, devoid of any guitar vibrations and thoroughly a child of the sound typical of the era in which it was conceived.

In this context, the song "Talk Talk" emerges as the ideal litmus test. A sophisticated, illuminated, intense song, whose embryo was born back in 1977, when Talk Talk were still called Reaction, a punk duo made up of Mark himself and his brother Ed, who also co-wrote the piece.

Although it failed to climb to success on its first release as a single in April 1982 (reaching only No. 52 on the UK charts), the song later achieved considerable success a few months on, thanks to a remix devised by Rhett Davies, the producer of Roxy Music, who lifted and reinforced its melodic lines, driving it to the far more respectable No. 23 on the sales charts.

"Talk Talk" carries a latent anguish and frustration, aimed at sounding the alarm on the dangers that were trying to break through and irreversibly reshape the society of those years, and it finds in Hollis's unmistakable nasal voice - powerful yet velvety at once - the floating channel into the depths of one of the London band's finest historical testimonies. Incidentally, the song was dug up again in the '90s by Italy's own Rai, used as the theme for Wednesday's Coppa Italy broadcasts.

While the delightful "It's So Serious" is a passage influenced by the sound of Omd, with catchy phrasing and cutting-edge production techniques, the first single lifted from the album and released to the public was "Mirror Man", an introverted song that, while showing the first stirrings of Hollis's dark and hermetic lyricism, failed to make a real impact among fans.

The situation improved considerably with the moody "Today", dominated by Webb's melodic bass and instrumental in unlocking the band's sound, bringing it closer to the caring refinement of Japan rather than to the more conventional pop outfits à-la Duran Duran. "Today", though probably deserving of an even happier fate, still managed to climb the UK charts as high as No. 14.

That same model so dear to David Sylvian & co. was then taken to the next level by Talk Talk through the title track, arguably the finest composition on the album, marked by penetrating Eastern shades and the epic gothic backdrop used to close out the track.

The record's so-called Side B opens in particularly aggressive fashion with "Hate", frantic and inlaid with new wave leanings - perhaps the only outpost of that kind on the album - distinguished by Lee Harris's reverberating percussive bursts, a track that in later years - during the "The Colour Of Spring" period, that is - saw particularly compelling live reworkings, stripped of the original's synthetic textures in favour of electric guitar and various other sonic solutions that made it even more rewarding to experience, even for the musicians performing it: one of the few songs from this early phase of their career that Hollis particularly loved presenting to audiences in this new, more regal guise.

The serious subject matter tackled in "Have You Heard The News?" - a description of the aftermath of a severe car accident - though it could be filed under new romantic terms, shows how Talk Talk, even at this early stage of their career, were determined to break free of the hasty label pinned on most of their contemporaries, who sought easy shortcuts to impress audiences.

Paul Webb is the author of "Another Word", the only song in the Talk Talk catalogue written entirely by him. Notable for its driving, steady rhythmic construction, the track was released as a single in Germany, where it achieved unexpected success, helped along by its prestigious use as the theme for the TV police drama "Inspector Derrick", extremely famous in Italy too.

Brenner's piano is the true protagonist of "Candy", an introverted track that closes out an album deserving of attentive listening, far more than one might assume at first glance, and one that offers the first hints of certain strategic and stylistic choices that would become increasingly apparent on subsequent records.

Special mention must certainly go to the work done by James Marsh on the evocative cover artwork, his first creation for a Talk Talk release - a collaboration that would accompany the band throughout their entire career, over the course of which the English artist would deliver true graphic gems that became an integral part of every one of their works.

A direct comparison with the other albums released by Talk Talk would admittedly feel forced, but it would be a grave mistake not to give due space and deserved respect to a work that, besides being the starting point of their saga, already conceals a few hints of the artistic stature the group would reach and of what, within just a handful of years, would earn them a place among the greats of music history.

Talk Talk are, even at this point, already something different from the rest of the firmament. Within the grooves of "The Party's Over" one can sense agitation, abyssal reflection, moments that have the merit of unfolding with remarkable ease and engagement - far more so than the vast majority of similar records released in those years.

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09/02/2026