At the beginning of the 1980s there were a lot of bands that went through a rapid development within a very short time. Examples are XTC, Prefab Sprout, The The or Julian Cope: artists who don't just deliver nice chart food, wear the latest fashion and are easy to market, but develop their own ideas and rebel in a creative way. If they don't make as much money as their record companies expect from them, they often react with thumbscrews and lawyer's letters - an experience that Mark Hollis, Lee Harris, Paul Webb and their producer and unofficial fourth band member Tim Friese-Greene also have to make at some point.
The history of the band Talk Talk, which is above all the history of Mark Hollis, reflects one of the most unusual developments in rock music. Started in the early eighties as a synth-pop act in the spirit of the New Romantics, the first album "The Party's Over" was still a child of its time. The following "It's My Life" was a huge success in Germany; the single "Such A Shame" climbed to second place in the charts. The songs were catchy, but at the same time strange, different. There was the disturbing elephant trumpet at the beginning of "Such A Shame" or the unorthodox - sometimes mumbling, sometimes hysterical - singing of Mark Hollis. What kind of band was that?
Space for the avant-garde
