Mark David Hollis (4 January 1955 – February 2019) was an English musician and singer-songwriter. He achieved commercial success and critical acclaim in the 1980s and 1990s as the co-founder, lead singer and principal songwriter of the band
Talk Talk
Talk Talk were an English band formed in 1981, led by Mark Hollis (vocals, guitar, piano), Lee Harris (drums), and Paul Webb (bass). The group achieved early chart success with the synth-pop singles " Talk Talk" (1982), " It's My Life", and " ...
. Hollis wrote or co-wrote most of Talk Talk's music—including hits like "
It's My Life" and "
Life's What You Make It"—and in later works developed an experimental, contemplative style.
Beginning in 1981 as a
synth-pop group with a
New Romantic image, Talk Talk's sound became increasingly adventurous under Hollis's direction. For their third album, ''
The Colour of Spring
''The Colour of Spring'' is the third studio album by English band Talk Talk, released on 17 February 1986. Written by Mark Hollis and producer Tim Friese-Greene, the album combines elements of jazz and art pop in an effort by Hollis to embra ...
''(1986), Talk Talk adopted an
art pop
Art pop (also typeset art-pop or artpop) is a loosely defined style of pop music influenced by art theories as well as ideas from other art mediums, such as fashion, fine art, cinema, and avant-garde literature. The genre draws on pop art's ...
sound that won critical and commercial favour; it remains their biggest commercial success. The band's final two albums, ''
Spirit of Eden
''Spirit of Eden'' is the fourth studio album by English band Talk Talk, released in 1988 on Parlophone Records. The songs were written by vocalist Mark Hollis and producer Tim Friese-Greene and the album was compiled from a lengthy recording ...
''(1988) and ''
Laughing Stock''(1991), were radical departures from their early work, taking influence from jazz, folk, classical and experimental music. While they were commercial failures in their own time, these albums were retrospectively highly critically acclaimed and have come to be seen as early landmarks of
post-rock music.
After Talk Talk disbanded in 1991, Hollis returned to music in 1998 with a
self-titled solo album, which continued the direction of Talk Talk's sound but in a more minimal, sparse, acoustic style. Following the release of his only solo album, Hollis largely retired from the recording industry. He died, aged 64, in February 2019.
Biography
Early life (1955–1977)
Hollis was born on 4 January 1955 in
Tottenham, London. He had two brothers, one elder and one younger. Little is known about his early life as Hollis was a reluctant interviewee throughout his career. He attended
Tollington School
Tollington School (1901-1967) was a selective, coeducational grammar school in Muswell Hill, London, England. For the present school on this site, see Fortismere School.
Foundation
Tollington School of Muswell Hill, North London N10, was the ...
, a now-defunct
grammar school
A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary sch ...
in
Muswell Hill
Muswell Hill is a suburban district of the London Borough of Haringey, north London. The hill, which reaches over above sea level, is situated north of Charing Cross.
Neighbouring areas include Highgate, Hampstead Garden Suburb, East Finchl ...
, London. In one interview, he claimed to have quit pursuing an education before he had completed his ; in another, he said he had taken a course in
child psychology
Developmental psychology is the scientific study of how and why humans grow, change, and adapt across the course of their lives. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to include adolescence, adult development ...
at the
University of Sussex but dropped out after a year and a half.
Between school and the launch of his music career, he worked in factories and as a laboratory technician.
Reflecting on this period in his life, he later said, "I could never wait to get home and start writing songs and lyrics. All day long I'd be jotting ideas down on bits of paper and just waiting for the moment when I could put it all down on tape."
The Reaction (1977–1979)
Ed Hollis, Mark's older brother, mentored Mark and introduced him to the music industry. Ed was a
disc jockey, producer and manager of several bands, including the
pub-rock group
Eddie and the Hot Rods. With Ed's encouragement and assistance, Mark formed his first band, The Reaction. Emerging in the
post-punk era, the Reaction's sound reflected Hollis's interest in early
garage rock as found on the 1972 compilation ''
Nuggets''. In a later interview, Hollis said, "Up until punk there's no way I could have imagined I could get a record deal because I didn't think I could play, but punk said, 'If you think you can play you can play.'"
In 1977, The Reaction recorded a
demo
Demo, usually short for demonstration, may refer to:
Music and film
*Demo (music), a song typically recorded for reference rather than release
* ''Demo'' (Behind Crimson Eyes), a 2004 recording by the band Behind Crimson Eyes
* ''Demo'' (Deafhea ...
for
Island Records
Island Records is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded in 1959 by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall, and Leslie Kong in Jamaica, and was eventually sold to PolyGram in 1989. Island and A&M Records, anothe ...
. A song from the demo, "Talk Talk Talk Talk", featured on the punk compilation ''
Streets'', released by the record-store chain and fledgling label
Beggars Banquet
''Beggars Banquet'' is the 7th British and 9th American studio album by the English rock band the Rolling Stones, released on 6 December 1968 by Decca Records in the United Kingdom and London Records in the United States. It was the first Ro ...
. Written by Hollis, "Talk Talk Talk Talk" is an early version of Talk Talk's 1982 second single, "
Talk Talk
Talk Talk were an English band formed in 1981, led by Mark Hollis (vocals, guitar, piano), Lee Harris (drums), and Paul Webb (bass). The group achieved early chart success with the synth-pop singles " Talk Talk" (1982), " It's My Life", and " ...
".
George Gimarc
George Douglas Gimarc ( ; born 1957) is an American disc jockey, record and radio program producer and author based in Texas and is in the Texas Radio Hall of Fame. He is known for his extensive and authoritative knowledge about the classic rock ...
noted the Reaction's rendition of the song is about twice as fast and has "a completely different feel" than the 1982 version. Island released the Reaction's only single, "I Can't Resist", in 1978.
George Gimarc
George Douglas Gimarc ( ; born 1957) is an American disc jockey, record and radio program producer and author based in Texas and is in the Texas Radio Hall of Fame. He is known for his extensive and authoritative knowledge about the classic rock ...
likened "I Can't Resist" to early works by
the Hollies and
the Who. The Reaction disbanded the following year.
Around this time, Hollis's musical outlook broadened considerably. He began to listen to
progressive rock like
King Crimson and
Pink Floyd, which were considered unfashionable in the punk era. His brother Ed introduced him to a wider range of music including
jazz, particularly
John Coltrane and
Ornette Coleman
Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman (March 9, 1930 – June 11, 2015) was an American jazz saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter, and composer known as a principal founder of the free jazz genre, a term derived from his 1960 album '' Free Jazz: A Colle ...
.
Miles Davis's collaborations with arranger
Gil Evans on ''
Porgy and Bess
''Porgy and Bess'' () is an English-language opera by American composer George Gershwin, with a libretto written by author DuBose Heyward and lyricist Ira Gershwin. It was adapted from Dorothy Heyward and DuBose Heyward's play '' Porgy'', i ...
''(1959) and ''
Sketches of Spain
''Sketches of Spain'' is an album by Miles Davis, recorded between November 1959 and March 1960 at the Columbia 30th Street Studio in New York City. An extended version of the second movement of Joaquín Rodrigo's ''Concierto de Aranjuez'' (1939) ...
''(1960) had a lasting impact on Hollis; he later said Davis and Evans's work together "has space, tight arrangement and technique but it also has movement within it" and said those two albums "were extremely important albums to me then and they still are, because the values they work with are faultless."
Talk Talk
Hollis was best known for being the lead singer and primary songwriter of the band Talk Talk between 1981 and 1991. He was praised for his "always remarkable voice" and, along with Talk Talk's producer
Tim Friese-Greene
Timothy Alan Friese-Greene is an English musician and producer. He worked with the band Talk Talk from 1983 to their breakup in 1991. He currently releases solo albums under the name "Heligoland". He is the grandson of filmmaker Claude Friese-Gr ...
, took the lead in evolving the band's style from
New Romantic into the more experimental and contemplative style that later became known as
post-rock.
Hollis has been credited with saying: "Before you play two notes, learn how to play one note. And don't play one note unless you've got a reason to play it." He also commented: "The silence is above everything, and I would rather hear one note than I would two, and I would rather hear silence than I would one note." In 1982, he cited his greatest influences as
Burt Bacharach
Burt Freeman Bacharach ( ; born May 12, 1928) is an American composer, songwriter, record producer and pianist who composed hundreds of pop songs from the late 1950s through the 1980s, many in collaboration with lyricist Hal David. A six-time Gra ...
and
William Burroughs.
[ Mark Savage, "Obituary: Talk Talk's Mark Hollis", ''BBC News'', 26 February 2019](_blank)
Retrieved 26 February 2019
Solo work and retirement
Talk Talk disbanded in 1991. In 1998, Hollis released an eponymous solo debut album, ''
Mark Hollis
Mark David Hollis (4 January 1955 – February 2019) was an English musician and singer-songwriter. He achieved commercial success and critical acclaim in the 1980s and 1990s as the co-founder, lead singer and principal songwriter of the band ...
''. In an interview at the time, he said: "To me the ultimate ambition is to make music that doesn't have a use by date, that goes beyond your own time."
He also said: "Technique has never been an important thing to me. Feeling always has been, and always will be, above technique."
According to a 2008 article in ''
The Guardian'', he then largely retired from making music. He stated about his decision to retire from performing, "I choose for my family. Maybe others are capable of doing it, but I can't go on tour and be a good dad at the same time."
Despite Hollis' absence from the public eye, he continued to be mentioned in the music press as an example of an artist who refused to sacrifice his artistic ambition for commercial success, as a yardstick for current artists and one of the most important musicians of his generation. His withdrawal from the public continued to fascinate music critics.
By the time his solo album was released, Hollis had moved back from the countryside to London in order to provide his two sons with a more cosmopolitan environment.
In 2004, Hollis resurfaced briefly to receive a
Broadcast Music Inc.
Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) is a performance rights organization in the United States. It collects blanket license fees from businesses that use music, entitling those businesses to play or sync any songs from BMI's repertoire of over 20.6 milli ...
Award for having written "It's My Life". In 2012, a piece of specially commissioned music by Hollis titled "ARB Section 1", was used in the television series ''
Boss
Boss may refer to:
Occupations
* Supervisor, often referred to as boss
* Air boss, more formally, air officer, the person in charge of aircraft operations on an aircraft carrier
* Crime boss, the head of a criminal organization
* Fire boss, a ...
''.
Collaborations
Hollis performed the solo track "Piano" on the 1998
minimalist
In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...
album ''AV 1'', by Phill Brown and Dave Allinson, under the pseudonym John Cope. This was later included on the 2001 ''Talk Talk'' compilation album ''
Missing Pieces''. He played piano on and co-wrote the track "Chaos" on the 1998
trip hop album ''
Psyence Fiction
''Psyence'' is the second album by Japanese musician hide, released on September 2, 1996. It topped the Oricon Albums Chart and was certified double platinum by the RIAJ for sales over 500,000 copies. The album was re-released on the Japan only ...
'' by
Unkle, later asking for his name to be removed from the album credits. He also co-produced and arranged two tracks ("The Gown" and "Big Mouth") on
Anja Garbarek
Anja Garbarek (born 24 July 1970 in Oslo, Norway) is a Norwegian singer-songwriter. She was raised in Oslo.
Career
Garbarek's debut album, ''Velkommen Inn'' (1992), is sung in Norwegian. She subsequently released three original albums cont ...
's 2001 album ''Smiling & Waving'', as well as playing bass guitar, piano and melodica.
Personal life
From 1998 till 2017, Hollis lived in
Wimbledon, London with his wife Flick (a teacher) and their two sons, before moving to
Heathfield, East Sussex where he lived until his death. Hollis' desire to spend more time with his family was a major reason that Talk Talk stopped touring after 1986, and his reason for retiring from the music industry in 1998.
Death
Hollis died from cancer in February 2019, aged 64.
Initial reports of his death included a
tweet from his cousin-in-law, the paediatrician
Anthony Costello
Anthony Costello (born 20 February 1953) is a British paediatrician. Until 2015 Costello was Professor of International Child Health and Director of the Institute for Global Health at the University College London. Costello is most notable fo ...
,
and a tribute by Talk Talk's bassist
Paul Webb
Paul may refer to:
* Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name)
* Paul (surname), a list of people
People
Christianity
*Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chr ...
,
before his former manager confirmed Hollis's death to the media on 26 February.
Further tributes to Hollis included
Duran Duran
Duran Duran () are an English rock band formed in Birmingham in 1978 by singer and bassist Stephen Duffy, keyboardist Nick Rhodes and guitarist/bassist John Taylor. With the addition of drummer Roger Taylor the following year the band went ...
,
Depeche Mode
Depeche Mode are an English electronic music band formed in Basildon, Essex, in 1980. The band currently consists of Dave Gahan (lead vocals and co-songwriting) and Martin Gore (keyboards, guitar, co-lead vocals and main songwriting).
Depeche ...
,
The The,
Steven Wilson,
Alexis Taylor
Alexis Taylor (born 20 April 1980) is an English singer, songwriter, and musician. He is best known as the lead vocalist, keyboardist, and guitarist of the band Hot Chip. He is also the keyboardist of the band About Group and has released solo ...
,
Andy Kim,
Charlotte Church
Charlotte Maria Church (born Charlotte Maria Reed, 21 February 1986) is a Welsh singer-songwriter, actress, television presenter and political activist from Cardiff.
Church rose to fame in childhood as a classical singer before branching ...
,
Flea,
Roland Orzabal
Roland Orzabal (born Roland Jaime Orzabal de la Quintana; 22 August 1961) is a British musician, singer-songwriter, record producer, and author. He is best known as a co-founder of Tears for Fears, of which he is the main songwriter and joint v ...
,
Robin Pecknold
Robin Noel Pecknold (born March 30, 1986) is an American singer-songwriter, who serves as the principal songwriter and vocalist for indie folk band Fleet Foxes, with whom he has recorded four studio albums. He is known for his distinct baritenor ...
,
Peter Gabriel,
Ryley Walker,
Peter Hammill,
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark,
Marc Almond,
Elijah Wood,
Kirin J. Callinan,
Chris Baio
Christopher Baio (born October 29, 1984) is an American musician, best known for being the bassist for the New York City-based indie rock band Vampire Weekend. He also releases as a record producer under the mononym Baio, and his debut solo al ...
and
Broken Social Scene
Broken Social Scene is a Canadian indie rock band, a musical collective including as few as six and as many as nineteen members, formed by Kevin Drew (vocals, guitar) and Brendan Canning (vocals, bass) in 1999. Alongside Drew and Canning, the oth ...
.
Discography
Solo album
* ''
Mark Hollis
Mark David Hollis (4 January 1955 – February 2019) was an English musician and singer-songwriter. He achieved commercial success and critical acclaim in the 1980s and 1990s as the co-founder, lead singer and principal songwriter of the band ...
'' (1998)
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
External links
Within Without– Talk Talk and Mark Hollis fan site with articles, interviews and other content (via the
Internet Archive)
Wyndham Wallace, "Living In Another World: Remembering Mark Hollis" ''The Quietus'', 26 February 2019
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hollis, Mark
1955 births
2019 deaths
20th-century British male singers
20th-century English singers
Alumni of the University of Sussex
British male songwriters
British synth-pop new wave musicians
Deaths from cancer in England
English male guitarists
English male singers
English new wave musicians
English pop singers
English rock guitarists
English songwriters
Male new wave singers
People from Tottenham
Polydor Records artists
Post-rock musicians