Have You Heard The News?

When you devour as much past and present music press as I do, you get very used to cliché. 'We're just making this album for ourselves, and if anyone else likes it, that's a bonus.' 'Success, it's a double-edged sword.' 'You'll either love it or hate it.' The first two may very well be true, but that last one, generally speaking, isn't. It's just dramatic and/or self-aggrandising sloganeering. Most people get by well enough on a 'meh' for (e.g.) the latest My Morning Jacket album.

Yet there are a few exceptions. Talk Talk are very, very, very loved, almost to the point of obsession, by a small coterie. That’s not hard to understand. They have many qualities that inspire devotion: enigma, innovation, rebelliousness, meticulousness.

But hate?

That’s from the NME. (They eventually mitigated that somewhat and gave it a (7), but still called the album ‘painful’ and ‘pathetic’. It was almost disgustingly disingenuous. It basically said the same as the (0) review did, but through a panicked mist of ‘what if we’re wrong and this is actually pretty good?’).

What did the paper think about Laughing Stock? ‘Unutterably pretentious and looks over its shoulder hoping that someone will remark on its “moody brilliance” or some such. It’s horrible.’ The Colour Of Spring? ‘Either Hollis is possessed with an unbearable naïveté or an overpowering intensity, either he’s laughably misguided or studiously determined, but there’s really no need for this cumbersome, allegedly “impressionistic” waffle.’

Yes, the NME hated Talk Talk with a venom usually reserved for war criminals.

 

Mark Hollis wasn’t patient with journalists, including – but not limited to – those from the NME. For instance, I feel for Dave Rimmer, of Smash Hits; in a very early interview (August 1982), he gets the sharp end of Hollis’ tongue after he poses a question about Duran Duran. Reasonable for Rimmer to ask this: not only were Duran Duran ridiculously massive for the Smash Hits readership at that point (as irritating as that fact might have been for a young Hollis), but Talk Talk had just been on tour with them. Rimmer, rather charitably I feel, noted Hollis to be ‘an abrasive character’ and then amiably gave him space to talk about who he would like to be compared to: Otis Redding, Bacharach & David, John Coltrane.

Smash Hits got over the Hollis disdain soon enough, albeit in a very Smash Hits way (‘just because Talk Talk look a complete shambles, [it] doesn’t alter the fact that they have some truly excellent songs’). It was the same story in Q and Vox: largely uncomfortable interviews, while the albums were reviewed intelligently and positively. And as for Melody Maker, they loved them so much they closed their eyes and rolled over on their tummy at every release. ‘If music can ever be said to be confessional and questing, this is it,’ they said of Spirit Of Eden; and ‘Talk Talk are certainly the most individual, possibly the most important group we have’ closed out their Laughing Stock review.

For a flavour of how Hollis was on (probably) a good day, consider these two extracts. The first, from Music Box and with director Tim Pope, is a discussion on Talk Talk videos, with the pair making some very hardcore honest points (in between the weapons-grade piss-taking). The second is a candid talking head, from 1998, that suggests perhaps Hollis mellowed a bit with age, and was – when he didn’t have to do it all the time – keen on exploring serious points about his music.

All that said, let’s go back to the NME. This is from the 22^nd February 1986, around The Colour Of Spring.

 

Unlike with ol’ Dave Rimmer, and your be-mulleted Music Box host, I have absolutely no sympathy with Neil Taylor, who conducted this NME interview. He wastes what – in hindsight – was a rare opportunity. Reading carefully, Hollis was perhaps in talkative mood, because he's volunteering information about his literary influences and song structures. But bully anyone about their work like this, and they will react accordingly. I'd imagine this interview was at least partly responsible for Hollis being wary and reticent with journalists in the future, and eventually withdrawing altogether.

The empire of the powerful inkies is long over, of course. NME went free earlier this year, and Melody Maker – remembered by my interviewees as ‘the better one’, where you might see The Young Gods or AR Kane on the cover – folded in 2000. Melody Maker became sneering and virtually unreadable towards the end and, interestingly, one of their parting shots was to review Kid A in a very similar way to how the NME received Spirit Of Eden.

Of course, criticising the work – and calling Hollis, or Yorke, or whoever, out for acting like a dickhead – is essential. It’s no good to have a bland mush where ‘they tried their best, so let’s be nice’. But if you are prejudiced toward an artist to such an extent that you compromise the entire structure of an interview or fill up a lengthy review with unsubstantiated bile, then you are in the wrong job, and time is unlikely to look kindly upon you.