Hearing about unexpected death of Mark Hollis left me shocked and saddened, and my immediate reaction was to play "Spirit of Eden". For me that album was the peak of his and Talk Talk's career. Very few albums can touch its emotional palate. Within its six glorious tracks you can find (and feel) happiness, frustration, liberation, rage, introspection, and melancholy, just to name six, often all in the same song, and sometime all within the space of a few notes.
If he had passed away 20-25 years ago, the obits would have presented him as an 80's synth pop star who retreated from fame to make challenging, critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful music. Now, he's presented as a "post-rock pioneer" and the emphasis is on the final decade of his career and subsequent retirement from the music industry. If anything, Talk Talk's output from 1982-1986 has become criminally underrated in recent years. People mention almost in passing these days that Talk Talk toured with Duran Duran and had several hits. It almost comes off sounding like they were bandwagoners who lucked into success by playing the right style of music at the peak of its popularity. But Talk Talk were an outstanding synth pop band. Even within the parameters of that genre, they evolved from basic stuff like "Talk Talk" to rhythmically adventurous songs like "Such A Shame" in only two years. By 1986's "The Colour of Spring" album, they were already branching out into jazz and improvisational music (the band played Montreux that year) and had never been more commercially successful.
There is so much to love about Talk Talk, and even today, their unconventional career path is no less fascinating than it was at the time. RIP to a true great.
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