Desert Island Recordings: Laughing Stock by Talk Talk

Like it or not, we are all chained to our past. What we have done
slowly becomes who we are.  This holds especially true for
musicians as they constantly struggle against what they have
already created for the world to behold. The pieces of art that
fans, labels, journalists, and maybe themselves become forever
tethered to their identity. The crusty joke about “I like their old
stuff better” is often truly a death knell for a band’s growth. An
artist is frozen in time by their own past success. Why try
anything new if it won’t matter to most of the people who care
about your product anyway? And, frankly, for a lot of bands,
they’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Changing styles
might spark the sell-out or jumped the shark chants with angry mobs
carrying pitchforks and reading Pitchfork. If you don’t, though,
you risk growing stale and fading away. Some bands lean into a
stylistic steadfastness and can compel allegiance through sheer
resolute commitment. The Ramones, Motorhead, and the Cramps built a
brand on a singular style, albeit their own very unique style. Most
artists with some longevity, ebb and flow, grow and retreat, but
hang around their general vicinity of comfort. There are tons of
examples of this. Artists like Wilco, REM, Willie Nelson, Rolling
Stones, etc. It goes on and on. Some artists reinvent themselves
constantly throughout their careers but never to a completely
unrecognizable degree. This would include David Bowie, Prince,
Madonna, and Bob Dylan. Some simply pinball from one horrific sound
to the next. Sting, for example, and his tantrically mediocre
existence. Some artists might occasionally take an oddball flier on
a totally random genre record that exists squarely outside of their
cannon, maybe for fun, or by accident, or out of contract
obligations...think Serge Gainsbourg’s Reggae album, Ween’s country
album, Neil Young’s Trans, Metal Machine Music, Pat Boone’s
unfortunately satisfying metal album, and of course, the oft cited
here, Chris Gaines taking off the goatee mask to become Garth
Brooks. These often sound more on the wrong side of the “novelty to
homage” scale. However, there are a few rare cases when an artist
completely reinvents themselves, elevating the limits of ambition
and shattering preconceived notions of their music. Scott Walker
left behind his teeny bopper career to become a pork-pounding
master of the avant-garde. Tom Waits evolved from a barroom
balladeer to a carnival barking madman. Brian Eno disrobed from his
leopard print glam tendencies to essentially single-handedly herald
in ambient music. And finally, Talk Talk who started as a group of
synth-toting Duran Duran doppelganger doppelgangers to being at the
forefront of the post-rock movement. As we continue to delve into
different forms of isolation shaped and sculpted into musical
artifacts, Talk Talk’s Laughing Stock is intentionally distancing
from the sentiment and bias of the past. A band that desperately
works to create space and blatant disregard from what they are
supposed to be. And in the end, it turns out to be too destructive
of a force for the group to continue.   Highway Hi-Fi is a
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