Taking Sides: Ministry vs. Talk Talk

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Both spawned from the same scene/aesthetic. Both churned out cheesy, by-the-numbers synth pop albums that they've both since disowned (despite arguable "classic" status, by some circles' decree). Both bands took dramatic turns in the stylistic trajectory. One influltrated the electro-industrial scene, the other departed for a more adventurous melodic territories. Ministry went onto reinvent itself as an drug-fueled aggro-industrial-metal conglomerate then gradually ran out of fresh ideas, while Talk Talk sequestered itself further into Mark Hollis' idealized mindset of sparse melodic patchwork, jazzy noodlings and large helpings of silence and indecipherable mumblings. Both put out stunning albums along the way, but......which do you choose?

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― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 18 December 2002 16:14 (twenty-three years ago)

Talk Talk.

Ministry...gradually ran out of fresh ideas

It wasn't gradual, it happened pretty damn quickly.

― hstencil, Wednesday, 18 December 2002 16:15 (twenty-three years ago)

talk talk, definitely

ministry had better album titles tho

― geeta (geeta), Wednesday, 18 December 2002 16:16 (twenty-three years ago)

"It wasn't gradual, it happened pretty damn quickly."

I think Ministry honed their industrial-metal style gradually from ...RAPE & HONEY to eventually "perfecting" it on PSALM 69, then hit the wall, repeating themselves yawnsomely on their next couple of discs.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 18 December 2002 16:19 (twenty-three years ago)

Ministry was a bona fide classic up through _A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste_. After that album, I like to pretend that they don't exist. (Also, their cheesy synth-pop was anything BUT by-the-numbers lyrically; how many synth-pop bands put out songs about being burned in effigy by everyone you meet or throwing your lover down the stairs during an argument?)

I've never paid any attention to Talk Talk.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 18 December 2002 16:19 (twenty-three years ago)

Both those records sound pretty damn similar (and incredibly dated) to me. Plus, when you only put out like one record every 4-5 years, it's easy to be kinda behind.

― hstencil, Wednesday, 18 December 2002 16:20 (twenty-three years ago)

Also, the industrial roots really start poking through on _Twitch_.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 18 December 2002 16:21 (twenty-three years ago)

"Also, their cheesy synth-pop was anything BUT by-the-numbers lyrically"

Fair point, Dan, but I was talking more about the sound as a whole. Talk Talk's lyrical turn on THE PARTY'S OVER is pretty simillar in its bleakness.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 18 December 2002 16:22 (twenty-three years ago)

"Also, the industrial roots really start poking through on _Twitch_."

In much the same way Talk Talk's second album, IT'S MY LIFE, was slowly moving away from skinny-tie'dom as well.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 18 December 2002 16:33 (twenty-three years ago)

i tend to lean towards ministry on this one... but yeah, everything after psalm 69 was pretty much a waste. although, the "in case you didn't feel like showing up" live disc was pretty good.

― msp, Wednesday, 18 December 2002 16:37 (twenty-three years ago)

(Also, their cheesy synth-pop was anything BUT by-the-numbers lyrically; how many synth-pop bands put out songs about being burned in effigy by everyone you meet or throwing your lover down the stairs during an argument?)

Or put out music videos that end with a woman dying in the electric chair?

― Christine "Green Leafy Dragon" Indigo (cindigo), Wednesday, 18 December 2002 16:39 (twenty-three years ago)

Talk Talk, as I've never paid much attention to Ministry.

There's nothing wrong with It's My Life, and quite a lot right with it. Might be the archetypal Great Synth-Pop Classic after all. Their other later stuff might be more "stylistically challenging" or whatever, but nothing on any of it touches me as much as "Renee" or "It's You" or all those weirdo drum noises on "Dum Dum Girl."

― Matt C., Wednesday, 18 December 2002 16:39 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh my God, Christine! I've never seen that video; is it for "Revenge"?

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 18 December 2002 16:44 (twenty-three years ago)

I believe so. It was all over MTV in the mid to late Eighties. (It ends with the woman being strapped in and a cut to a lightbulb flickering, you don't see the actual death.)

― Christine "Green Leafy Dragon" Indigo (cindigo), Wednesday, 18 December 2002 16:52 (twenty-three years ago)

Al was so fresh-faced once.

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Brilliant question in any event. Heard Talk Talk first with "It's My Life," was a fan of Ministry first via The Land of Rape and Honey (never heard *any* of the early stuff until something like 1994!), Talk Talk have lasted the test of time better for me. More here.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 18 December 2002 16:57 (twenty-three years ago)

I bought "With Sympathy" when it came out; liked it then and like it still. Their later records never interested me at all. I do like the later Talk Talk records, and think they have some beautiful and strange sounds. But as for songwriting I'm with Matt C... I'll take "It's My Life."

― Sean (Sean), Wednesday, 18 December 2002 17:21 (twenty-three years ago)

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As were the lads in Talk Talk.

Seriously, I wasn't maligning the IT'S MY LIFE ALBUM at all, but as great as it was, Talk Talk's finest hour is *INDISPUTABLY* the utterly sublime SPIRIT OF EDEN album.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 18 December 2002 17:59 (twenty-three years ago)

I still think _Twitch_ is Ministry's best album, particularly the CD with the 12" versions of "All Day" and "Over The Shoulder" and "Isle Of Man".

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 18 December 2002 18:02 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't know Talk Talk very well, but Ministry's peak, for me, has gradually moved backward from the In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing live album to Twitch, which I have been loving lately. Sadly, they had fully painted themselves into the corner of "faster, louder, more guitar" by Psalm 69.

I once heard a story that one of the extras in the N.W.O. video got thrown off the set for wearing one of Al's dreadlock extensions.

More random trivia: First few bars of nin song "the great below" = first few bars of Isle of Man. (Poor Trent is still stealing from Al!)

― bnw (bnw), Wednesday, 18 December 2002 18:13 (twenty-three years ago)

Talk Talk definitely. Ministry doesn't have a single song i can actually remember.

― g (graysonlane), Wednesday, 18 December 2002 19:19 (twenty-three years ago)

Keep 'Its My Life', 'Spirit of Eden' and 'Laughing Stock'- Ministry has nothing to compare

― insectifly2, Wednesday, 18 December 2002 19:27 (twenty-three years ago)

! Those would have to be some impressinve songs if they all dwarf "Effigy (I'm Not An)", "Revenge", "Here We Go", "Say You're Sorry", "Every Day Is Halloween", "All Day", "Over The Shoulder", "The Nature Of Love", "Isle Of Man", "The Angel", "Cold Life" and "My Possession".

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 18 December 2002 19:30 (twenty-three years ago)

I just want to hear Special Effect, the "arty" punk band Al Jourgensen was in with Larry Nardiello (later of Thrill Kill Kult) back in the early 80s!

Oh, and in brief, "Laughing stock" bettern than any single Ministry album, but "Twitch" was my first, and it turned me onto Adrian Sherwood and therefore Tackhead, African Head Charge, and all of On-U Sound. So, Ministry wins for me.

― donut bitch (donut), Wednesday, 18 December 2002 20:10 (twenty-three years ago)

And are we forgetting the NAZ-TEE goth funk anthem "Cold Life"? That's a JAM! So, for that alone, Ministry definitely wins.

― donut bitch (donut), Wednesday, 18 December 2002 20:10 (twenty-three years ago)

What I think is so striking -- and I mentioned something to this same effect on the Devo vs. XTC thread -- is that they started from virutally the same stylistic placement (play WITH SYMPATHY and THE PARTY'S OVER back to back and they practically meld together) but couldn't have ended up in more polar positions (contrast the rock ferocity of PSALM 69 versus the sprawling subtleties and pastoral nuances of SPIRIT OF EDEN).

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 18 December 2002 20:12 (twenty-three years ago)

(DB, reread my last post for steamy "Cold Life" action!)

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 18 December 2002 21:09 (twenty-three years ago)

I like at least one Ministry song and they seem to be doing badly so I'll vote for them. I'll concede that I only heard Talk Talk in passing a couple times but it sounded like a crap Dead tape with Corey Hart on vocals.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Wednesday, 18 December 2002 22:27 (twenty-three years ago)

Twitch- Got tired of it years ago.Got rid of all my other Ministry albums. Don't even know where my copy is-Crash and Burn!!

Spirit Of Eden- Still keeps my interest when I put it on. I won't answer the phone if it rings while its playing. I have worn out 3 copies of this CD and I just got a 4th one

― brg30 (brg30), Thursday, 19 December 2002 02:31 (twenty-three years ago)

brg30, sir, how, prey, do you "wear out" cds?

― t\'\'t (t''t), Thursday, 19 December 2002 02:46 (twenty-three years ago)

SPIRIT OF EDEN is indeed in that elite class of albums that I have owned on vinyl, cassette and CD.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 19 December 2002 02:52 (twenty-three years ago)

What Ned said! Exactly what Ned said.

Sundar - you need to hear Laughing Stock then. I bought it by bargain bin accident (meaning I recognised the band name from the earlier singles but didn't know what I was in for) back in the early nineties. I'll lay odds that you won't be thinking of Corey Hart.

― Kim (Kim), Thursday, 19 December 2002 02:57 (twenty-three years ago)

Spirit of Eden, Laughing Stock, and Mark Hollis's solo alb - all fkn brilliant

― t\'\'t (t''t), Thursday, 19 December 2002 03:19 (twenty-three years ago)

I have to add my two cents in for _The Colour of Spring_, a great "bridge" between early and late Talk Talk... not as solid as the two that follow, but some great songs and textures nonetheless.

― Clarke B., Thursday, 19 December 2002 06:39 (twenty-three years ago)

Talk Talk - Yes Yes!

― Nicole (Nicole), Thursday, 19 December 2002 13:19 (twenty-three years ago)

Are you all really hating on "The Nature Of Love" and "Everyday Is Halloween"? THE WORLD HAS GONE MAD.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 19 December 2002 15:07 (twenty-three years ago)

"The Nature of Love" was kinda crap, but "Everyday is Halloween" is a classic.

Mark Hollis' solo album was pretty crap too, though..... too many tunelessly parping oboes.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 19 December 2002 15:51 (twenty-three years ago)

HERESY! (Wait, that's NIN.)

"Love is like an open hand/Stings a little when it lands..." = GENIUS.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 19 December 2002 15:56 (twenty-three years ago)

six years pass...

Let's revisit this thread.

Any thoughts?

― ilxor, Monday, 9 March 2009 05:58 (seventeen years ago)

Well alright then.

― ilxor, Monday, 9 March 2009 14:39 (seventeen years ago)

Mark Hollis' solo album was pretty crap too, though..... too many tunelessly parping oboes.

oh the vitriolic days of alex.
he was wrong of course, but happy times indeed.

― mark e, Monday, 9 March 2009 14:44 (seventeen years ago)

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