One of those really great things that are nice to have.
M. Fantino | San Francisco, California USA | 06/04/2001
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I'm breaking my own rules here and I'm giving a five star rating to a collection. I tend to only buy album releases and singles. I stray pretty heavily from Best Of..'s or Greatest Hits. I find, often times a good amount of the original intent of an album is lost. It may sound eccentric, and it probably is. I usually like songs that are not hits and never show up on those types of releases anyway. (I have a friend, incidentally, if you think I'm strange or rigid. He only buys a bands debut album.)Anyway, I love this "collection". I have the handsomer Orange and Blue cover that the import version boasts, unlike the cluttered newspaper montage American version. The content is the same, either way. I have a pretty substantial Talk Talk collection, I have all of their albums except their first The Party's Over (my tape of it, purchased in London in the Summer of 1988, has long since withered on a Honda's dashboard in the Californian Sun.) I like Talk Talk. It would take me ages to hunt down all of these remixes, if they exist at all, and having them housed all together on one shiny CD is a wonderful thing. The truly standout tracks are the two of Such A Shame (a fantastic version of this also exists on the posthumous London 1986 which is a full concert recorded beautifully at Hammersmith Odeon over 15 years ago); Life's What You Make It; the long and winding Happiness Is Easy; Living In Another World; and of course, the early 80's smash hit Talk Talk, which I assume they've named themselves after. I do know that the first, premixed version of the song Talk Talk was put to record back in 1977 when lead singer Mark Hollis' older brother Ed Hollis (of Eddie and the Hot Rods) produced a compilation album of the up-n-coming punk acts. Mark Hollis band then was called The Reaction and they had two songs under their slim belts, Talk Talk and Talk Talk Talk Talk. That was a longtime ago. The fact that Talk Talk emerged as part of that forgettable Neo-Romantics period in music when things were getting goofier by the minute, and then progressed progressively right at the peak of their prowess, meaning, just when they were getting good, they turned around and got much much better and shunned the music industry and tried their hardest not to have a hit single because they were so progressive they wanted a hit album. They succeeded on both counts. They had two very interesting, classic sounding albums and then quickly broke up. Nobody knew. I knew, simply by chance, as a young teenager, I was snatching up any record I could find by this band and ended up with the good ones without even knowing it. It's nice, therefore, that their is an album like this, this set of remixes, to remind us of what they ran from. Where was this release when I was 15?"
Extended Life!
Mark Oudesluys | Toronto, Ontario Canada | 08/12/2000
(3 out of 5 stars)
"The extended versions of the songs included on this release were done without the consent of the band, Talk Talk, and resulted in a law suit against EMI, which Talk Talk was victorious over. Although they were totally against this release I rather enjoyed some of the extended versions especially those from the Colour of Spring. These versions only added more to the extension of the legacy known as Talk Talk and they should be proud that someone had the courage to take on their complex sound and create dancable tracks. This in turn has helped reach a wider audience, notably those in the dance clubs, which in turn may have encouraged sales for the band."
Track Listings (12) - Disc #1
