Talk Talk

[Grand Epic]

If it weren't for my undying love for Radiohead, Talk Talk's Spirit of Eden would be my favorite album of all time. All you out there who think Sigur Ros is so beautiful (don't get me wrong, I like Sigur Ros), check out Talk Talk's last two albums. They practically invented post rock.

[mogwai]

what's wrong with this one?



and how do you define post rock?

[Grand Epic]

This album is very good. "I Don't Believe in You" is one of my favorite Talk Talk songs.

Here's what Allmusic.com says about the term post rock:

Post-rock was the dominant form of experimental rock during the '90s, a loose movement that drew from greatly varied influences and nearly always combined standard rock instrumentation with electronics. Post-rock brought together a host of mostly experimental genres — Kraut-rock, ambient, prog-rock, space rock, math rock, tape music, minimalist classical, British IDM, jazz (both avant-garde and cool), and dub reggae, to name the most prevalent — with results that were largely based in rock, but didn't rock per se. Post-rock was hypnotic and often droning (especially the guitar-oriented bands), and the brighter-sounding groups were still cool and cerebral — overall, the antithesis of rock's visceral power. In fact, post-rock was something of a reaction against rock, particularly the mainstream's co-opting of alternative rock; much post-rock was united by a sense that rock & roll had lost its capacity for real rebellion, that it would never break away from tired formulas or empty, macho posturing. Thus, post-rock rejected (or subverted) any elements it associated with rock tradition. It was far more concerned with pure sound and texture than melodic hooks or song structure; it was also usually instrumental, and if it did employ vocals, they were often incidental to the overall effect. The musical foundation for post-rock crystallized in 1991, with the release of two very different landmarks: Talk Talk's Laughing Stock and Slint's Spiderland. Laughing Stock was the culmination of Talk Talk's move away from synth-pop toward a moody, delicate fusion of ambient, jazz, and minimalist chamber music; Spiderland, meanwhile, was full of deliberate, bass-driven grooves, mumbled poetry, oblique structures, and extreme volume shifts. While those two albums would influence many future post-rock bands, the term itself didn't appear until critic Simon Reynolds coined it as a way to describe the Talk Talk-inspired ambient experiments of Bark Psychosis. The term was later applied to everything from unclassifiable iconoclasts (Gastr del Sol, Cul de Sac, Main) to more tuneful indie-rock experimenters like Stereolab, Laika, and the Sea and Cake (not to mention a raft of Slint imitators). Post-rock came into its own as a recognizable trend with the Chicago band Tortoise's second album, 1996's Millions Now Living Will Never Die, perhaps the farthest-reaching fusion of post-rock's myriad touchstones. Suddenly there was a way for critics to classify artists as diverse as Labradford, Trans Am, Ui, Flying Saucer Attack, Mogwai, Jim O'Rourke, and their predecessors (though most hated the label). Post-rock quickly became an accepted, challenging cousin of indie rock, centered around the Thrill Jockey, Kranky, Drag City, and Too Pure labels. Ironically, by the end of the decade, post-rock had itself acquired a reputation for sameness; some found the style's dispassionate intellectuality boring, while others felt that its formerly radical fusions had become predictable, partly because many artists were offering only slight variations on their original ideas. However, even as the backlash set in, a newer wave of bands (the Dirty Three, Rachel's, Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Sigur Rós) gained wider recognition for their distinctive sounds, suggesting that the style wasn't exhausted after all.
Related Styles: Ambient  Alternative Pop/Rock  Prog-Rock/Art Rock  Experimental  Post-Punk  Kraut Rock  Indie Rock  Space Rock  Dream Pop  Noise-Rock  Downbeat  Electronica

[mogwai]

fair enough although you shouldn't reference another dude's point of view.

[Mesh]

The musical foundation for post-rock crystallized in 1991, with the release of two very different landmarks: Talk Talk's Laughing Stock and Slint's Spiderland.

Hey, Grand Epic!  Nice to see you here.

I've only ever heard the It's My Life album.  I need to get around to those better Talk Talk albums, clearly.

[tpfkabi]

Laughing Stock is so amazing........i love that album
whenever people praise Sigur Ros a lot, i try to mention Talk Talk...........i like Sigur Ros to a point, but their long songs are too repetitive to be enjoyable for me personally...........with Talk Talk though, their long songs seem to stay interesting the entire time.........and they also know that a 40 min. album with 6 or 7 songs is a lot better than a 70 min. album.......and if you're interesting in recording techniques, i read an interesting article written buy the producer of their last two albums in Tape Op.........the "airy" sound to Laughing Stock can be largely attributed to the fact that nothing was close mic'd........it really captures the sound of a room