The Party's Over (1982)

Personnel:

Mark Hollis: vocals

Simon Brenner: keyboards

Lee Harris: drums

Paul Webb: bass guitar

Produced at Chipping North Studios by Colin Thurston.

Release date: July 1982.

Highest chart places: UK: 23, USA: 132

Running time: 36:47

Imagine if your first exposure to Talk Talk was Spirit Of Eden or Laughing Stock or even The Colour Of Spring. Imagine that you then started digging into Talk Talk's back catalogue, beginning with their 1982 debut, The Party's Over. The cover artwork certainly gives no indication that the sounds within are dramatically different to later discs, and the face with crying lips for eyes is in keeping with the conceptual continuity the group sought by keeping James Marsh on for every one of their album covers. The title is also in keeping with Mark's melancholy outlook, although it has yet to mature from the 'angry young man' take on melancholy into the deep rapture of his later work. Imagine if, having gazed at the cover and wondered about the title, you then put your stylus down on the platter and pumped up the stereo, and on came 'Talk Talk', and then its eight subsequent songs, all of them produced by Duran Duran man Colin Thurston with the same superficial gloss he gave to that superficial band. Yuck.

First impressions count, but it's worth diving down through that gloss because just under that top layer is a talented band and a decent record; just not one that has yet broken out of the tight strictures set for it by time and place and record company ambitions. And it's worth remembering that - even though Mark's idea of the group was vastly different to the reality of The Party's Over - he too was seething with ambition and knew that the EMI deal was his big chance.

When they signed with EMI, the group had played fewer than six live dates, and they were promptly sent off to support Duran Duran on tour, who were at their commercial peak between their two biggest albums, their 1981 self- titled debut and Rio (1982). It must have been challenging for Mark, who even then was a reticent performer who refused between-song chatter and blanched at looking directly at the audience. After all, nobody really cares about opening acts, and being painted as being somehow connected to a band he probably despised and had nothing in common with must have rankled.

Or maybe Mark and his colleagues didn't object in the first instance to the Duran Duran comparisons/connections, possibly seeing benefits in terms of audience exposure while knowing full well that they were from another planet, musically and emotionally. Why else would they then allow EMI to foist Duran Duran's producer, Colin Thurston, onto their album debut? It's possible that Mark was just starstruck enough that Thurston had engineered David Bowie's Heroes album to think that he would bring out the best of Talk Talk rather than try and mould them into a kind of faux-Duran Duran. It's also possible that Mark was willing to go with the flow at this time, and that he secretly saw the linking of Talk Talk with the new romantic scene as a necessary bridge to cross in order to establish the group's name with the public at large.

For EMI's part, it seems that they were hell-bent on connecting the dots between the two groups (hey, they've both got double-banger names that repeat!) and it's likely that none of the Talk Talk members really understood the damaging implications of the Duran Duran comparisons.

Not, of course, that Duran Duran were awful, or anything. On their own terms, they're one of the most splendidly talented pop acts of the 1980s. The music press painted them as Thatcherites and Tories and aesthetically, they were exuberant proponents of a full-colour bursting out of monochrome new- wave traits into a lush, sexy and dazzling perspective. No wonder the kids went for them, as they did for the other so-called new romantic bands that told them it was okay to get up and dance and be happy.

On the one hand, the whole new romantic movement was a necessary reaction to the somewhat dour aesthetic of the post-punk groups, and let's not forget that even the most politically oriented new wave groups (The Gang Of Four) and the most inclined towards a depressive outlook (New Order, The Cure) found themselves in the new romantic domain by the early 1980s. An important part of the zeitgeist was the rediscovery of dance music and outrageous clothes and a sense of joie de vivre.

It's when you consider that fact that you understand just how stridently Talk Talk stood in opposition to all that, despite the fact that The Party's Over was dressed in the new romantic's best sonic costumery. The title says it all: the party is over before it has even started, folks.

Talk Talk couldn't have been more polar opposite to Duran Duran in their overall outlook and attitude and musical ambitions. There was certainly a massive chasm between how EMI saw Talk Talk and Mark's perception of his group, or at least, how he explained the group in interviews. A pointed example of this disconnect was the way EMI dressed the group in all-white suits for their first photo shoot and video. Mark thought of the group's real image as being closer to the rebel chic of The Doors, and in interviews, likened them to a jazz quartet. That seems disingenuous (or possibly sarcastic) but probably says a lot about what was cogitating in his mind but hadn't yet worked its way through to the actual music.

Recorded between December 1981 and January 1982, The Party's Over was released in July of that year to a collective yawn and a few bad reviews. It was an easy target for the UK music press, which predictably and unsurprisingly tarred and feathered Talk Talk with the Duran Duran brush. Critics accused the band of slavish imitation, too much reliance on technology, and having an airless sound, fake strings and clumping drums, and many swiftly consigned them to the new romantic pop dumpster. New Musical Express, however, gave it a refreshingly considered review, noting that there was 'a darker side; a gothic, almost celestial majesty'.

Forty-something years on from its release, it's now possible to hear it with fresh ears and dig beneath that shiny production to songs that, on closer inspection, have post-punk impetus not so far removed from the likes of Joy Division/New Order and Echo & The Bunnymen. Dig beneath the shiny production and the synth-dominated sound and it's obvious that underneath the time-capsuled gloss, there's a real band with real songs fighting to get out.

Regardless of the merits (or otherwise) of The Party's Over, it must have been a hugely exciting time for the band to have their album out on a major label and be sent on an all-expenses tour to America, playing to crowds of many thousands in support of Elvis Costello. The tour coincided with the 'Today' 12-inch single getting decent airtime on US radio, and they were able to headline a small number of their own shows there and even scored an appearance on The Merv Griffin Show. However, interviewed poolside in LA, they were described as hostile and Mark was already expressing dissatisfaction with the album, and hinting that the band were heading in a more 'organic' direction. Or perhaps the first-time travellers were just homesick?

Back in England, in any case, Talk Talk came thudding back down to earth at a disastrous, rain-sodden fundraiser for WOMAD with the angry crowd throwing mud and plastic bottles. Supporting a Genesis reunion with original singer Peter Gabriel, their quickly muddied Clockwork Orange-themed white suits and glossy pop were seen as a provocation by the hostile audience.

This disastrous appearance was eventually followed up by the group's own headlining tour in the UK, in preparation for which they hired a Welsh cottage for three weeks (as you do). Ben Wardle's Hollis biography claims that the isolation of the setting pushed tensions within the band to breaking point and that, while Lee was discovering magic mushrooms growing on the hillside, Simon was being bullied by Mark, who couldn't get what he wanted from the keyboardist.

As an interim measure, Phil Ramocon - an experienced player with a jazz background who had performed with the likes of Jimmy Cliff - was brought in as an additional keyboardist for the tour: Brenner on synthesiser and Ramocon on piano. The bolstering of its onstage line-up didn't do anything for the reviews, however, which repeatedly made the assertion that Talk Talk had no stage presence and no personality. New Musical Express went a step further: 'His (Mark's) manner is that of a nervous accountant who by chance just happens to have stumbled onto a stage'.

While The Party's Over wasn't the smash hit EMI would have liked it to be, it hung around the UK top 100 for the last six months of 1982 and into 1983, and it was a big seller in tiny New Zealand where it went to Number eight on the charts. Two performances on Top Of The Pops failed to propel the singles or the album to stratospheric heights, possibly because Talk Talk simply didn't scrub up like real pop stars. The fact was that Mark's bird-like...