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| Talk Talk—Spirit of Eden |
Spirit of Eden—Though U2's similar Eno-infused rock soundscapes came years prior, Talk Talk's shift from synthpop to art music was surprising. Almost no artist in that vein headed for the ditch—Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Eurythmics—and others simply made compromises, such as the jagged-yet-accessible stylings of Devo or Gary Numan. Talk Talk was more primed for that shift, considering singer Mark Hollis was more thoughtful and sensitive than his contemporaries. The songs on The Party's Over (1982), It's My Life (1984), and The Colour of Spring (1986) were far from banal, even in the earliest stages—cheaply done perhaps, but the craft just kept getting keener and tighter. Producer Tim Friese-Greene's occasional songwriting input blossomed into a full-blown symbiosis with Hollis, which sharpened Hollis' vision, resulting in more adventurous micromanagement; as a result, The Colour of Spring utilized twice as many session musicians as any other Talk Talk album.
It didn't so much sound like radical change was taking place, but Talk Talk was growing, and Colour of Spring's sales (their best-selling album), along with hit single "Life's What You Make It," gave them more freedom for the follow-up, Spirit of Eden. Hollis said, "Spirit of Eden—I kind of think that was very much, in a way, where all those earlier albums were trying to get to" (1998 TV interview, Okay Tone), and that was shrewd introspection; Eden's personnel—that is to say the band's discrete number of instruments—were pared down from Colour of Spring's line-up, though thanks to shrewd editing and a wider variety of sounds, it doesn't at all seem so. Hollis and Friese-Greene took the resulting recordings and played with each bit of tape until the album's six extended cuts were complete—Hollis being a proponent of first takes: "If you demo a track, no matter how badly you tried to demo it, there will always be a quality within it that you subsequently would try to recreate, which you shouldn't be."
As a result of this holistic approach, Spirit of Eden feels very cohesive, and in fact the first three songs form their own suite, led by the sparkling "The Rainbow," where Hollis sings of justice. The music evokes the intermittently pleasant uncertainty of a circadian rhythm, with certain segments alternating in intensity and length, and how nature and emotion are constantly at odds. The bittersweet "Eden" alternates between promise and mourning—the aural manifestation of a letdown. "Desire," the most rock-oriented tune, fittingly mimics an oncoming storm, yet is defiant; without cracking a smile, Hollis quips, "That ain't me, babe/I'm just content to relax/Than drown within myself," highlighting the sad pointlessness of obsession.
The dirge "Inheritance" exposes the excesses of humanity: "Don't you know where life has gone/Burying progress in the clouds" He subtly digs at faith-based living ("Expecting the dour/To redress with open arms/Ascension in incentive end"), calling the collective "Nature's son," implying accountability and a misguided need for what he describes as "Desperately befriending the crowd/To incessantly drive on/Dress in gold's surrendering gown." The achingly beautiful "I Believe in You" is an uncharacteristically explicit anti-heroin song completed just before Hollis' brother Ed's death by overdose: wondrously dissonant, with the chorus hitting C♯ being one of the most satisfying moments in popular music. The closing hymn "Wealth" is a sentimental resignation to fate which posits that ultimately, Hollis' misgivings about life in general are tempered by his acceptance of powerlessness.
Spirit of Eden didn't showcase anything particularly groundbreaking—the jazz tones and meticulous editing recall Miles Davis' Bitches Brew and Soft Machine's Third—but rather than embracing an experimental bent, Talk Talk polished their recordings to create something not only challenging but profoundly, undeniably gorgeous from start to finish. It stands as not only their high-water mark, but a dazzling achievement in music.
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| Split Enz—Mental Notes |
Mental Notes—Not the first theater aficionados to take up rock instruments, Split Enz was something like New Zealand's answer to Roxy Music. Eventually, they evolved into Crowded House and became household names in other parts of the world, but that was more than ten years after the inception of Split Enz, then called Split Ends. They acted for three years as an occasional-singles band, recording three: "For You" backed with the eponymous "Split Ends," "Sweet Talkin' Spoon Song"/"129," and "No Bother to Me"/"Home Sweet Home." These songs, released collectively with other early works as The Beginning of the Enz (1979), were even farther removed from the worldwide appeal of Crowded House. "For You" was a woodwind-laden, acoustic tune with off-kilter charm: folk in the vein of Vaudeville, but with a Kiwi touch. The rest of the songs were equally idyllic, most likely due to their insular upbringing in rural New Zealand, and colored by the influence of apparent band leader Phil Judd.
To call Split Enz the Beatles of New Zealand is in many ways not an understatement, as the band was both directly influenced by the recently broken-up Beatles and also would pave the way for New Zealand pop groups in the same way the Beatles did on their side of the world. As Judd's group, however, their music was a different animal. The cover of Mental Notes (painted by Judd) was a strange piece of work—seven band members with unnatural skin colors and ridiculous expressions and some various other individuals, the back cover extending this image into an absurd scene with a frankly terrifying photorealistic baby—that definitely fit the music therein. The art was also not merely affectation, as Split Enz' performances were ensconced in this aesthetic that was rooted in philosophy and literature. The record begins with the isolationist "Walking Down a Road," on which said aesthetic is apparent—a quality of introspection no doubt influenced by the troubled mind of Phil Judd, a then-undiagnosed sufferer of bipolar disorder (although Tim Finn sings it and shares writing credits). The mad "Under the Wheel" is surrounded in darkness; Judd sings of persecution and abjection, offering the conclusion, "death, glorious death/Is just another appointment to keep." The bright "Amy (Darling)" was meant for Judd's daughter, though it also seems to have some dualism or what-have-you (hopefully), as Finn also sings that "She's a serpentine, she's a naughty girl/Making the most of the rich man's world." Side one closer "So Long for Now" has an air of self-rationalization to its wavering words.
Side two, bookended by characteristically theatrical extended pieces, begins with the nightmarish "Stranger than Fiction," which spins a yarn that reads like the fantastical stories the name recalls. Requiem for the resigned "Time for a Change" contains one of Judd's best verses: "But like a parrot in a flaming tree/I know, it's pretty hard to see/I'm beginning to wonder if it's time for a change." The plodding, harmonic "Maybe," the album's only single, is unsurprisingly the most straightforward lovey pop song, though not to displeasing effect. The quaint and gratifying "Titus" tributes Gormenghast, which served as inspiration for much of the album's mood-feeling. The living crosscurrent "Spellbound" wistfully notes the phenomenon of personal stasis in an ever-changing world. Lighthearted vignette "Mental Notes" makes use of the run-out groove of the vinyl record to produce a repeating phrase ("Make a mental note") a la "A Day in the Life."
Split Enz as a collective was split on their opinion of their work on Mental Notes. All but two of the songs on the follow-up, aptly titled Second Thoughts (1976) were reworkings of songs from Mental Notes, the sessions from same, or earlier recordings. Time has proven that this was unnecessary, as Mental Notes continues to be a singularly compelling recording. Though they continued to make great, evolving pop music for years, Split Enz never quite duplicated the keen sense of purpose or consistent ingenuity of their debut.
