Laughing Stock by Talk Talk

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I hate loving music. I could, like, go on holiday and shit if I didn't care.

― Llahtuos Kcin (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 09:33 (twenty years ago) link

dAMN YOU ALL'; i'VE JUST SPENT £15 ON SECOND-HAND COPIES OF THE FIRST bOWS and capslock shit can't be arsed to retype, yeah, ordered the Bows record too. The one that looks like that Maxwell album.

― Llahtuos Kcin (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 09:45 (twenty years ago) link

First Long Fin Killie. Dur.

― Llahtuos Kcin (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 09:45 (twenty years ago) link

Nick, I'd guess you'd love the first LFK album and find the other two okayish.

― Ricardo (RickyT), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 09:51 (twenty years ago) link

Thank god for that. I can just download 'em then.

― Llahtuos Kcin (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 09:55 (twenty years ago) link

Be sure to find the cover version of Madonna's "Angel."

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 19:27 (twenty years ago) link

I don't get the Long Fin Killie love. The guy's voice grated on me when I tried to listen to them. They are almost nothing like Talk Talk, that is for sure. The Bows records are good, very similar to Locusts' "Morning Light" but also unlike Talk Talk.

― anthony kyle monday (akmonday), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 20:30 (twenty years ago) link

QUESTION: Is the "edit" version of "New Grass" on Missing Pieces any different from the one on Laughing Stock? I sure don't hear anything different about it. You?

The only sucky song on Missing Pieces is the crappy 15-minute piano minimalist crap thing at the end. WITHOUT A DOUBT it is hands down my least favorite Talk Talk song of all time.

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 20:32 (twenty years ago) link

eleven months pass...

I just found Missing Pieces for $6US used. I was wondering what it was. Sounds like I paid the right price for it (or maybe slightly more)

― donut christ (donut), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 02:35 (nineteen years ago) link

yeah slightly pointless - some of the versions are exactly the same, no?

― jed_ (jed), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 02:43 (nineteen years ago) link

It's a nice little adjunct, basically. Not exactly the same but certainly close, re-edits or arrangements.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 02:44 (nineteen years ago) link

I recently downloaded two sides of Mark Hollis talking about the making of. A promo, maybe? Makes an interesting companion piece to those old Tape Op articles on the same subject.

― dlp9001, Wednesday, 29 December 2004 02:47 (nineteen years ago) link

eee gads - i need to hear that!

― jed_ (jed), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 02:50 (nineteen years ago) link

I think that's the interview which can be heard here:

http://users.cybercity.dk/~bcc11425/Real.htm

The description provided is:

"Mark Hollis talks about Laughing Stock (RealMedia) -- Interview with Mark Hollis from Verve promo tape."

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 02:59 (nineteen years ago) link

Let me also hype up these two Melody Maker articles from late 1991, which I transcribed. ;-)

http://users.cybercity.dk/~bcc11425/IntMM070991.htm

http://users.cybercity.dk/~bcc11425/IntMM261091.htm

The second is a technical interview with both Hollis and Phill Brown, and makes for excellent reading.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 03:00 (nineteen years ago) link

thanks ned!

― jed_ (jed), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 03:12 (nineteen years ago) link

Yez is welcome.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 03:37 (nineteen years ago) link

Did he end up winning the case against EMI over the remix album?

― haitch™ (haitch), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 04:55 (nineteen years ago) link

I don't think I've ever heard this! Ned, help me!

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 06:25 (nineteen years ago) link

this link http://users.cybercity.dk/~bcc11425/Real.htm ned posted above spencer - in your excitement you skipped right past it!

― jed_ (jed), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 14:52 (nineteen years ago) link

I think he means either the original album or Missing Pieces! Which, Spencer my friend, I'll be more than happy to share with ya.

I'm not sure what the result of the court case was, Haitch, but as the various repackagings have continued over time I think that answers that. This said, I don't believe a remix album is currently in print. (Pretty much all you need from the EMI days are -- the first four albums, the A-Sides/B-Sides double disc comp and the Live 1986 disc if you're really obsessed.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 14:57 (nineteen years ago) link

Hahah -- I've just realized that the interview done with Hollis and Brown that I linked to a few posts back was conducted by Cliff Jones! Too bad he didn't ask them something like, "Now, when I eventually form my crap band Gay Dad, should I shoot the drummer before he starts writing anything?"

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 15:05 (nineteen years ago) link

I listened to Laughingstock for the first time yesterday. I liked it. This is kinda ridiculous, but it reminded me of Xiu Xiu, I guess mainly in the vocals.

― n/a (Nick A.), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 15:22 (nineteen years ago) link

At last, ILM gives this album the praise it deserves.

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 19:13 (nineteen years ago) link

At last? Read the other Talk Talk thread! We've been going on about this and them since 2001. ;-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 19:18 (nineteen years ago) link

(Then again perhaps you are being flip, in which case I salute you.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 19:19 (nineteen years ago) link

(aye-aye, cap'n...)

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 19:20 (nineteen years ago) link

ah, i see!

― jed_ (jed), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 19:47 (nineteen years ago) link

Would I like Xiu Xiu then? I've said this to you before, but I always assume that I won't like any of these new bands that have a touch of the avant-garde about them. I guess I assumed that about Animal Collective, though, too, and I like Sung Tongs a lot.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 19:49 (nineteen years ago) link

I lost my (burned) copy of Laughing Stock, so I ordered a real one on Amazon a couple weeks ago. Then I worried that I hadn't gotten my brother enough of a Christmas gift, so I gave it to him instead. Which means I have to order it again now. (He will probably now read this and realize I am a schmuck.)

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 19:52 (nineteen years ago) link

"realize" = "confirm his belief that"

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 19:52 (nineteen years ago) link

I've only heard older Xiu Xiu, but you might like it. It's very melodramatic, to the extent that it's a little bit funny, and the music is interesting but pretty.

― n/a (Nick A.), Wednesday, 29 December 2004 19:57 (nineteen years ago) link

one year passes...

Where do you go after Laughing Stock? There isn't anywhere, is there? Even the Hollis album isn't quite enough.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Thursday, 20 April 2006 19:18 (seventeen years ago) link

I just listened to Laughing Stock at some considerable volume, cried, shook, stood up and kind of twitched a bit, sat in a crumpled heap, and listened intently. It was rather good. I'm now playing Music For Airports because there's nowhere to go after Laughing Stock, nowhere at all.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Thursday, 20 April 2006 19:29 (seventeen years ago) link

I recommend going to the corner 7-11 for a Slurpee, it'll revive your will to live

― Brakhage (brakhage), Thursday, 20 April 2006 20:10 (seventeen years ago) link

or grab some disco

― Brakhage (brakhage), Thursday, 20 April 2006 20:14 (seventeen years ago) link

This is an excellent question, and one that I don't have an answer to. It sounds like pretty much nothing else out there (that I've heard, anyway), and it definitely isn't "post-rock", no matter how many rock critics try to convince you otherwise.

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Friday, 21 April 2006 03:07 (seventeen years ago) link

Yes, Laughing Stock is several notches above almost everything called 'post-rock.'

― Freud Junior (Freud Junior), Friday, 21 April 2006 03:23 (seventeen years ago) link

In the Mojo article it's said that a lot of Stock arose from improvisation, that a lot of what made it great was that it was 'unrepeatable'. I thought that was interesting since so much of what I like about the album is the jarring bits of noise or odd phrases that pop in suddenly.

I remember being very disturbed by the fact that the lyric sheet in the CD was incomprehensible (maybe only to me) - it didn't really assist you with deciphering what Hollis was singing. I think that made it all the more powerful as a listening experience.

― Brakhage (brakhage), Friday, 21 April 2006 15:48 (seventeen years ago) link

Thks for Mojo article

― Mart, Saturday, 22 April 2006 09:05 (seventeen years ago) link

It is proto-postrock tho--- a clear line of influence from the last 2 talk talk albums on the early UK postrock of Bark Psychosis....

― gekoppel (Gekoppel), Saturday, 22 April 2006 19:18 (seventeen years ago) link

I think on Hex Bark Psychosis took their cues from Spirit of Eden more than Laughing Stock. Hex is a lot cleaner and, um, "designed" than Laughing Stock, albeit also darker and more claustrophobic. Also Bark Psychosis always have that 4AD ethereality to their guitar and keyboard work, whereas the beauty in Talk Talk, and especially Laughing Stock, sounds a lot more organic, warm rather than cool.

I guess though that if you listen to Hex and 'O'Rang's Herd of Instinct and split the difference you get something approaching Laughing Stock.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Saturday, 22 April 2006 22:45 (seventeen years ago) link

i never got that thing about talk talk being the first post-rock band neither. they are completely of their own, an island in the landscape of music. what really knocked me off my post-rock trip in the late 90s was this post-rock formula bands like mogwai, godspeed or do make say think employed. starting with almost silence and then soaring and soaring to the loud climax. talk talk don't do this. there is much more silence and space in between in their songs. there is cacophony but not in a progression-like way.

with hex i often have a problem with that so totally inoffensive voice. most of the time it drives me nuts as it totally lacks emotion. in a way that projects back on the music. there seems to be something wishy-washy about it. nice sounding but i don't feel the depth i feel in laughing stock or spirit of eden. it's a little like a body without blood.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Sunday, 23 April 2006 17:20 (seventeen years ago) link

alex in Mainhattan totally, completely OTM.

― Stormy Davis (diamond), Monday, 24 April 2006 05:25 (seventeen years ago) link

Agreed. I love BP, obviously, but Hex is definitely a cold, urban record, sheet glass and concrete. Laughing Stock is something else.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Monday, 24 April 2006 09:00 (seventeen years ago) link

three years pass...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/TALK-TALK-Rare-Promo-Laughing-Stock-Wooden-Pencil-Case_W0QQitemZ390063733119QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Music_Music_Memorabilia_LE?hash=item5ad19c397f&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65:12|66:2|39:1|72:1687|240:1318|301:0|293:1|294:50

― d90 (D90), Friday, 3 July 2009 15:57 (fourteen years ago) link

How very random. Nice, though.

― Alex in NYC, Friday, 3 July 2009 17:28 (fourteen years ago) link

wow! I need a new copy of that CD as it turns out.

― akm, Friday, 3 July 2009 17:31 (fourteen years ago) link

It was mentioned on that other TT thread that not many women were posting on it. Well, if it helps, SoE got me through several hours of labour with my second son. It goes very well with gas and air.

Haven't heard LS, though -- I love love love SofE so will check it out.

― Meg (Meg Busset), Friday, 3 July 2009 22:32 (fourteen years ago) link

Or you can save it for your next labour? j/k

Like someone else upthread, I love Laughing Stock and Spirit of Eden equally, so enjoy.

― Lostandfound, Friday, 3 July 2009 23:03 (fourteen years ago) link

Skipping 10 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

I went so long before I even really noticed it was there.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 6 April 2020 13:10 (four years ago) link

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Laughing Stock by Talk Talk - C or D?