Talk Talk - "It's My Life"

(Debuted March 24, 1984, Peaked #31, 14 Weeks on the Chart)

Last year, I featured Talk Talk's first U.S. hit on this blog. Their second would be their biggest on these shores, as well as their only Top 40 single. Before recording the album It's My Life, producer Tim Friese-Greene joined as an unofficial "fourth" member and helped write several songs with the band's leader Mark Hollis. One of those songs was "It's My Life," which leaned toward the New Wave/New Romantic style the band used for its first album.

After this LP, the band would go in its own direction musically, a move that gained it a lot of fans among other musicians but killed its future potential for more hits. They broke up in 1992 but are listed as influences by an awful lot of artists. "It's My Life" would appear again in 2003 when No Doubt took their own rendition of the tune into the Top 10.

Talk Talk -- "Talk Talk"

(Debuted October 16, 1982, Peaked #75, 7 Weeks on the Chart)

When they appeared in 1982, Talk Talk may have seemed to be trying to clone Duran Duran's sound. From those New Wave beginnings, they actually transcended the trappings of that sound and stretched out their influences even as their later recordings may not have been as successful.

While "Talk Talk" may have seemed like a band raising its own billboard, the song name actually predates it. Like many New Wave groups, Talk Talk's roots began in the punk-era days in England. Mark Hollis was part of a group called The Reaction around 1977, and one of the songs they did in their set was "Talk Talk." Hollis's brother was a disk jockey in London and got the band an audition for Island Records, but the band split after one single. By 1981, Hollis had formed Talk Talk and resurrected the song for the band's debut LP.

Though the song really didn't do much on the charts in its day (#75), it stands as a decent example of New Wave music circa 1982, just as the New Romantic era was beginning to take root.