release date: May 1990
format: digital
[album rate: 4 / 5]
producer: Colin Thurston, Tim Friese-Greene, Rhett Davies
label: Parlophone / EMI - nationality: England, UK
Compilation album by Talk Talk is the band's first best of release issued by EMI as the band was sacked from the record label after having released Spirit of Eden (Sep. 1988), which was anything than what EMI had hoped for.
The original issue contains 12 tracks but as early as of Jul. 1990, 14 tracks re-issues were released for the Japanese and North American markets. In 2004, EMI re-issued the album as The Essential, although with an identical tracklist of the original 12 track issue. In 2007, EMI launched a 2-disc issue based on the original UK release containing a bonus DVD with video versions for the European market. This was reissued by EMI in 2013 - but now with the title Natural History 1982 - 1988. Talking about milking the sacred cow!
Needless say, the album is both an album for everyone else as well as a collectors' item. Lead vocalist and frontman of the band, Mark Hollis, alledgedly said of the album that EMI compiled the album entirely without the band's consent, and that he didn't like the idea of best of albums in the first place.
A year later, EMI also released the album History Revisited - The Remixes - once again made without having informed the band, and what's seems even worse: EMI had the 10 tracks remixed in new extended versions without involving the band when altering its music. As a consequence, Mark Hollis and the band sued EMI for having remixed their songs without asking for permission of the band - and the band won the case, which among other things meant that the company was obliged "to withdraw and destroy all remaining copies of the album" [VOX, 1998].
Natural History - The Very Best of Talk Talk is nevertheless a fine collection of songs, but as Mark Hollis also commented [in Melody Maker, Sep. 7, 1991] about an album he wouldn't release: "It certainly wasn't the selection of tracks I would have liked even if there had to be one".
[ allmusic.com 4,5 / 5 stars ]
