Tuesday, April 19, 2011


Talk Talk- "It's My Life" Video (1984) U.K. Version

Talk Talk and their record company, EMI, battled constantly over the music videos, the latter claiming the band's efforts were blatantly noncommercial. They even ordered a complete re-shoot of the "Such a Shame" video.  For the "It's My Life" video, which features wildlife footage interspersed with shots of Mark Hollis wandering around a zoo, the director, Tim Pope, and Hollis decided to blatantly resist the convention of lip-syncing in music videos. In the video, Hollis wears a dour, satirically tight-lipped facial expression. Yet again, EMI was not happy with the results and demanded a more conventional lip-synced version be produced for the U.S. market. Although the band acquiesced, the performance was highly exaggerated and managed to achieve the same satirical effect. Talk Talk: iconoclasts to the bitter end!

4 comments:

  1. Great song. It has to be played LOUD.

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  2. Great song indeed. Too bad so many people nowadays know it only because of this goddamn awful No Doubt cover. Recording covers as terrible as this one should be prosecuted. No judge, no jury, no trial, straight to execution.

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  3. Michael, In total agreement. In fact, I'd like to volunteer to be the executioner :)

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