Mark Hollis

Mark David Hollis (4 January 1955 – February 2019) was an English musician and singer-songwriter.

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 introduced Mark to a wide range of music from garage rock to modal jazz, particularly Miles Davis's collaborations with arranger Gil Evans on Porgy and Bess(1959) and Sketches of Spain(1960).

Hollis 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."

His family moved from London to Rayleigh, Essex in 1962 and Hollis started at Rayleigh's Sweyne Grammar School (now The Sweyne Park School) in 1966.

He left Sweyne after completing his O-levels in 1971 and dropped out of college without completing his A-levels blaming the "complete lack of rules" there.

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.'"

After studying part time whilst working in an industrial laboratory, he accepted a place at University of Sussex in 1975 to study child psychology but dropped out in 1976 to pursue music.

He worked at what he later described as a "succession of horrible jobs" whilst he began to write songs.

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."

Mark's older brother, Ed, mentored him 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.

In 1977, The Reaction recorded a demo for Island Records.

A song from the demo, "Talk Talk Talk Talk", was included on the punk compilation Streets, released by fledgling label Beggars Banquet.

Island released the Reaction's only single, "I Can't Resist", in 1978.

The Reaction disbanded the following year.

Hollis's musical taste was owed greatly to Ed.

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.

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.

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, 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."

Written by Hollis, "Talk Talk Talk Talk" is an early version of Talk Talk's 1982 second single, "Talk Talk".

George Gimarc noted the Reaction's rendition of the song is about twice as fast and has "a completely different feel" than the 1982 version.

In 1982, he cited his greatest influences as Burt Bacharach and William Burroughs.

For their third album, The Colour of Spring(1986), Talk Talk adopted an art pop sound that won critical and commercial favour; it remains their biggest commercial success.

The band's final two albums, Spirit of Eden(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 his only solo album, which continued the direction of Talk Talk's sound but in a more minimal, sparse, acoustic style.

Following the release of the album, Hollis largely retired from the recording industry.

Talk Talk disbanded in 1991.

In 1998, Hollis released a self-titled solo debut album, Mark Hollis.

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 died, aged 64, in February 2019.