An Appreciation Post of Talk Talk's Spirit of Eden (1988)

Today marks thirty-five years since one of my favourite albums was released: Talk Talk's Spirit of Eden. That includes the cover art. And part of the reason for this is that it is just so different to the rest of their music, that it doesn't even sound like the same band.

Talk Talk had previously been known for releasing synthpop music, with their biggest chart hit up to that point being "Today", released in 1981 and reaching 14th place on the UK Top 40. (Their biggest chart hit of all time is "It's My Life", re-released in 1991 and reaching 13th place). Come 1986, they released The Colour of Spring, which toned down the synths, but even this album would sound nothing like Spirit would. From the first note on The Rainbow, the first song on Spirit of Eden, which also lasts for more than nine minutes, you could tell that Talk Talk, and especially vocalist Mark Hollis, had released a drastically different album, moving further away from pop than most bands have ever dared to. The album consists of a lengthy twenty-three minute suite, broken down into the tracks "The Rainbow", "Eden" and "Desire", as well as three shorter songs, one of which, "I Believe In You", charted at 85th interestingly enough. The song was only released as an edited single because Talk Talk's record label (EMI) forced them to.

I wasn't alive when Spirit of Eden came out (unsurprisingly), but after hearing Talk Talk on an 80's radio station, I eventually got round to listening to the album after indulging in their synthpop works. I don't remember much of the experience of listening to Spirit of Eden for the first time (barring that there wasn't as much singing as I expected and there were hardly any synths) - indeed the album sounded completely different to what I might have expected it to sound like. Looking on the album's liner notes, there are countless instruments I had never heard of such as the cor anglais and the shozygs, with numerous musicians brought in to record the album. The result is an album that consists of forty minutes, cut down from many hours of recording done in a darkened studio, drawing from Hollis' influences, such as Miles Davis and Claude Debussy. The album became one of the first to be titled as "post-rock" due to this sound, often building up over time to escalate into something brilliant.

I won't review the album because I have already tried reviewing music and I'm not particularly happy with how that went. Instead, I've written this blogpost to show my appreciation for it (hence the title), because from the limited music that I have listened to in my life, it is one of my favourite albums. And I won't say any more - listen to it, if I've convinced you.