Songoftheday 8/5/13 - Funny how I find myself in love with you, if I could buy my reasoning I'd pay to lose...

Talk Talk - "It's My Life"
from the album It's My Life (1984)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #31 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 6

Today's Song of the Day is by the British new wave group Talk Talk, who came together in London in the early 80s under singer Mark Hollis, and at the start ironically toured behind similarly-monikered Duran Duran. after releasing their debut album The Party's Over in 1982, the band's single "Talk Talk" became a minor hit in England, where it was followed by "Today", which gave the band their first top-40 hit in the UK, peaking at #14. After re-releasing "Talk Talk", it joined their other record in the top-40 and got enough exposure in America to make the Hot 100, reaching #75 in November of 1982.

After original keyboardist Simon Brenner left the band after the first album, the band recruited producer Tim Friese-Greene to handle the keys, though he wouldn't be an "official" band member in the videos or record photos. With Tim they set about to record their second record It's My Life, and the title track, written by Hollis and Friese-Greene and produced by the latter, became the now-trio's first and only top-40 hit. The original video for the song, directed by Tim Pope (best known for his video work with The Cure), was a sort of anti-video, stifling Hollis' mouth with overlaid animation accompanied by Mutual of Omaha-style animal footage to substitute for lipsynching. And I was enthralled - it was powerful and gorgeous...

"It's My Life" reached the top-40 in the US in May of 1984, while also topping the dance club chart the month before. Also, it made it to #23 on the rock radio format chart, their best showing as well. Strangely, in Britain the song initially didn't do so well, stalling out at #46 on the first go. However the song would prove to have legs, being reissued twice in the UK, first a year later, reaching #93, and then again in 1990 along with the band's best-of set and ended up going up to #13, topping "Today" to become their highest-ever rank on the British chart. But it's odd that such a great-sounding record totally in tune to the style of the day kind of tanked the first time out in their home country - it made the top-40 in the rest of Europe like France and Germany.

While their follow-up single "Such A Shame" failed to make the top-40 in both America (#89) and Britain (#46), it was a huge success on the continent, going to the top-10 in most of the big countries in Europe (France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Austria, even going #1 in Italy). Two years later, Talk Talk released the beautiful album Colour Of Spring, which contained the epic "Life's What You Make It", which would be their final pop hit in the US, and reach the top-40 two different times in England as well. After another two albums where only the first would produce a minor hit (1988's "I Believe in You"), the band finally split in 1992.

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When the band released "It's My Life" in the States, their record company insisted on including a 'performance' in their video, which led them to film an alternate clip with them badly lipsynching and flailing about, but it don't remember this being shown on MTV at all, only the original...

Here's Talk Talk live in 1984 with the song...

...and again in 1986 live at Montreaux....

In 2003, pop/punk group No Doubt recorded "It's My Life" as an add-on to their greatest hits set, and ended up with the sales-wise biggest version of the song, reaching #10 on the Hot 100 (and #3 on the Adult Top-40 chart). The remix by Jacques du Cont ended up grabbing a Grammy for best remixed recording, while the main edit was nominated for best pop group performance...

That same year, the original Talk Talk recording was remixed by dance production act Liquid People, and became the band's last minor charting single in the UK, reaching #64....

But the original remains one of my all-time favorite 80s top-40 hits, between the timeless lyrics and epic production, it just sets off whatever part of my brain ice cream hits.

Up tomorrow: the Fab Five finally reach the chart cli-cli-cli-cli-climax.