Album Club
14-04-2014, 23:02
This week, we've got the penultimate album in this round and it's thanks to Lee (webby) for providing it for us. Cheers Lee!
Please enter into the discussion if you wish to vote, and listen to the entire album before commenting.
Talk Talk - The Colour Of Spring (1986)
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61SpBO-KTqL.jpg
Wiki Band (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk_Talk)
Wiki Album
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Colour_of_Spring)
For those that don't know about Talk Talk, they are an english band of the 80's and early 90's. They released 5 studio albums in that time. Their first two albums were of the synth-pop genre that was very prevalent in the early 80's, but clearly, they did not want to be restricted by the limitations of pop, and perhaps, were not happy with the demands of the pop circus. They moved away from pop and ended their career with two highly rated art-rock albums. The Colour Of Spring was their 3rd album and a bridge between those two styles. In many ways, it was their OK Computer.
For me, as with Radiohead, the later albums, although enjoyable, step a little too far into the experimental, avant-garde style of art/prog-rock (I'm not good with music labelling so forgive me if I have these styles wrong). Like OK computer though, The Colour Of Spring was the perfect transitional album; more complex and experimental, but melodic and easy on the ear. The production and recording, to my ears, are superb and I think its dated very well (there are no 80's sounds on here). It's also very dynamic, scoring 14 on the DR Database. The musicianship is excellent and there are some great players on this album; Mark Feltham, Robbie McIntosh, Danny Thompson and Steve Winwood to name a few.
I didn't buy the album on it's release. I remember seeing the singles Life's What You Make It and Give It Up on TOTP and liking them but I didn't get the album then; I would have been 16 in '86 and I was listening to a lot of pop music. I first heard the entire album around a year or so later when I started to discover new stuff and picked it up whilst recalling the singles I liked.
This album blew me away! It was so different to what I was used to. The instrumentation; percussion, double bass, fantastic organs, brass and woodwind made it sound like such grown up, serious music. The songs weren't short pop songs, they evolved and meandered along their (mostly) 5mins-plus length and were more complex and layered, so they revealed more on each subsequent listen. The biggest nod to their forthcoming style is track 7, Chameleon Day, which is quite a jazzy interlude (completely new to me at the time). Probably one of my top ten favourite albums.
I recommend listening to it from start to finish, loud and with the lights off. Enjoy!
Warning: there are some child singers on the album, but hey, if its good enough for Pink Floyd…..
Spotify:
spotify:album:70V1kL7w7Q9pDU4I6zDjYE
Can't find the full album on YouTube but here's a playlist (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpGkiZ7FGmg&list=PLC3795D59D70039D0)
There's also a live concert from '86, Live at Montreux '86. Worth a look if you like the album.
qM6fWD-W6YA
Finally, a few random, and humourous thoughts on that gig (http://opus.fm/blog/random-thoughts-watching-talk-talk-live-at-montreux-1986-netflix)
Please enter into the discussion if you wish to vote, and listen to the entire album before commenting.
Talk Talk - The Colour Of Spring (1986)
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61SpBO-KTqL.jpg
Wiki Band (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk_Talk)
Wiki Album
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Colour_of_Spring)
For those that don't know about Talk Talk, they are an english band of the 80's and early 90's. They released 5 studio albums in that time. Their first two albums were of the synth-pop genre that was very prevalent in the early 80's, but clearly, they did not want to be restricted by the limitations of pop, and perhaps, were not happy with the demands of the pop circus. They moved away from pop and ended their career with two highly rated art-rock albums. The Colour Of Spring was their 3rd album and a bridge between those two styles. In many ways, it was their OK Computer.
For me, as with Radiohead, the later albums, although enjoyable, step a little too far into the experimental, avant-garde style of art/prog-rock (I'm not good with music labelling so forgive me if I have these styles wrong). Like OK computer though, The Colour Of Spring was the perfect transitional album; more complex and experimental, but melodic and easy on the ear. The production and recording, to my ears, are superb and I think its dated very well (there are no 80's sounds on here). It's also very dynamic, scoring 14 on the DR Database. The musicianship is excellent and there are some great players on this album; Mark Feltham, Robbie McIntosh, Danny Thompson and Steve Winwood to name a few.
I didn't buy the album on it's release. I remember seeing the singles Life's What You Make It and Give It Up on TOTP and liking them but I didn't get the album then; I would have been 16 in '86 and I was listening to a lot of pop music. I first heard the entire album around a year or so later when I started to discover new stuff and picked it up whilst recalling the singles I liked.
This album blew me away! It was so different to what I was used to. The instrumentation; percussion, double bass, fantastic organs, brass and woodwind made it sound like such grown up, serious music. The songs weren't short pop songs, they evolved and meandered along their (mostly) 5mins-plus length and were more complex and layered, so they revealed more on each subsequent listen. The biggest nod to their forthcoming style is track 7, Chameleon Day, which is quite a jazzy interlude (completely new to me at the time). Probably one of my top ten favourite albums.
I recommend listening to it from start to finish, loud and with the lights off. Enjoy!
Warning: there are some child singers on the album, but hey, if its good enough for Pink Floyd…..
Spotify:
spotify:album:70V1kL7w7Q9pDU4I6zDjYE
Can't find the full album on YouTube but here's a playlist (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpGkiZ7FGmg&list=PLC3795D59D70039D0)
There's also a live concert from '86, Live at Montreux '86. Worth a look if you like the album.
qM6fWD-W6YA
Finally, a few random, and humourous thoughts on that gig (http://opus.fm/blog/random-thoughts-watching-talk-talk-live-at-montreux-1986-netflix)