NATURAL HISTORY: THE VERY BEST OF TALK TALK

"Natural History: The Very Best Of Talk Talk" is a best-of compilation album by UK pop/rock act Talk Talk. The compilation was released through EMI in May 1990. The tracklist comprise material by Talk Talk released through EMI in the years 1982-1988. In 1990 Talk Talk had released four studio albums and they had enjoyed a lot of commercial and artistic success, which EMI felt they wanted to explore with this best-of release. The band wasn´t too happy about the decision, but EMI owned the music and released it. It became a huge commercial success and ended up selling around one million copies.

Talk Talk´s first two albums are intelligent synth pop releases, while their third album from 1986 "The Colour of Spring" started their journey into more experimental and progressive music territories. It´s a very interesting album albeit still very commercial and aimed at a mainstream audience. Talk Talk´s fourth and fifth albums are the most experimental/progressive albums from the band. Very minimalistic yet elaborate/clever arrangements, and generally very subtle almost subdued vocals from frontman and bandleader Mark Hollis are some of the ingredients which make up those two albums. As "Natural History: The Very Best Of Talk Talk" was released before the release of "Laughing Stock" (1991), there are not tracks from Talk Talk´s fifth full-length studio album on this compilation.

The early synth pop years are represented by the first six tracks on the compilation. The 1983 single track "My Foolish Friend" is the only non-album track featured on "Natural History: The Very Best Of Talk Talk". The five other early tracks are chosen wisely as they are definitely the most well known songs from the first two albums "The Party´s Over" (1982) and "It´s My Life" (1984). "The Colour of Spring" is represented here with four tracks which show how popular that album was. The two closing tracks on the compilation are from Talk Talk´s fourth album "Spirit of Eden" (1988).

So all in all I´d say that "Natural History: The Very Best Of Talk Talk" is a pretty good representation of Talk Talk´s career up til then. It´s a completely unnecessary purchase if you already own the four albums, which the tracks are predominantly culled from since you only get one non-album song, but as a best-of compilation it´s a decent quality release. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.

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