Racines

"Talk"
Song
B-side	"Gravity" "Sleeping Sun"

"Talk" is a song recorded by English rock band Coldplay and originally released as the fifth track on their third album X&Y, released in June 2005. In December 2005, the song was released as the third single from that album, becoming a substantial hit across the world (see 2005 in music). In the United Kingdom, "Talk" entered the UK Singles Chart at #10 (see 2005 in British music), and elsewhere in the world its success varied: it reached #1 in the Netherlands' Dutch Top 40 and the top five in Canada's BDS chart. Both the song and its "Thin White Duke" remix were nominated for the 2007 Grammy Awards, the latter of which won.

Background

Coldplay received permission from the electronic music band Kraftwerk to use the main riff from their song "Computer Love" (German: Computerliebe), from their 1981 studio LP Computer World (German: Computerwelt), for "Talk", replacing Kraftwerk's synthesizers with guitars. Subsequently mash-up artist RIAA combined "Computer Love" with "Talk" to create the song "Kraftplay". Presciently, the I Love Music website had humorously imagined the results of such a collaboration several months before it appeared.

The band recorded three separate versions of "Talk"; the one found on X&Y was based on an early cut of the song. A newer version of the track (with a different set of lyrics) was leaked onto the internet in March 2005. "Talk" was originally intended to be a b-side for the single "Speed of Sound" before becoming the last addition to X&Y's track listing.

This song was performed live at the 2005 MTV Europe Music Awards on 3 November in Lisbon, Portugal and live at the 2006 Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, United States.

"Gravity", the single's b-side, was originally written by Chris Martin for the British band Embrace, and is found on their album Out of Nothing. The song charted at number seven in the UK. Many editions of the single also included "Sleeping Sun" as a second b-side.

The song was also used as the basis of a downloadable hoax track entitled "Talk to David" produced as an April Fools Day prank by British newspaper The Guardian. This featured lyrics purporting to give support to Conservative opposition party leader David Cameron.

The song was featured heavily in the season two CSI: NY episode "Jamalot", where the character Danny Messer plays the song as a ringtone on his cell phone. Coldplay's American record company Capitol Records paid for promotional consideration to place the song in the episode and for the character to talk about Coldplay.

Chart performance

By mid-October, "Talk" had been added to the playlists of twenty-six U.S. alternative rock stations. Stations that offered early airtime to "Talk" include KTCL (Denver), WEND (Charlotte), KNDD (Seattle), KUCD (Honolulu), WFNX (Boston) and z103.5 in Toronto.

A month later, "Talk" was being supported by sixty-one U.S. alternative rock stations. On 18 November 2005, the single debuted at number thirty-two on the U.S. Modern Rock Tracks chart. "Talk" peaked at number five on the chart, a significant improvement from the performance of "Fix You", and matching that of "Speed of Sound".

On 31 December 2005, it "bubbled under" the Hot 100. It finally charted on the Billboard Hot 100 on 25 February 2006 and peaked at number eighty-six.

By then, the song had gained additional exposure in other genres. "Talk" reached number ten on the Adult Top 40, which covers Hot Adult Contemporary music. It topped the Hot Dance Club Play chart as "Talk (Junkie XL/Francois K/J. Lu Cont Mixes)".

It reached number four on the Canadian Singles Chart in late 2005 and topped the Canadian BDS Airplay Chart for four weeks in early 2006.

Music video

File:ColdplayTalkVideo.png

The "Talk" music video is a homage to B-grade sci-fi movies.

The music video for "Talk" was helmed by director/photographer Anton Corbijn. Corbijn had previously directed the video for "All These Things That I've Done" by The Killers.

Filming took place on 5 November and 6 November at Ealing Studios, London, just before the band began a European leg on the Twisted Logic Tour. The black-and-white clip invokes a B-movie science fiction theme, with imagery ranging from a flying saucer to 3D glasses. The main plot line of the music video features Coldplay as astronauts landing on an alien planet, where they re-activate a dormant robot, who eventually eats them and their spaceship as they are flying away.

The video was extremely popular in Poland. It spent thirteen weeks at number one on MTV Poland Top 20 Chart and 47 out of 50 days (because it was retired) at number one on TRL Poland.

Track listings

UK

• Promo released in early November 2005

1. "Talk" (radio edit) – 4:29

• 7" R6679

1. "Talk" (radio edit) – 4:29
2. "Gravity" – 6:12

• CD CDR6679

1. "Talk" (radio edit) – 4:29
2. "Sleeping Sun" – 3:09

• DVD DVDR6679

1. "Talk" (radio edit) – 4:29
2. "Gravity" – 6:12
3. "Speed of Sound" (video)
4. "Talk" (video)
5. Behind-the-scenes footage from "Talk" video shoot

• 12" 12R6679: The Remixes, released 6 March 2006

1. "Talk" (Thin White Duke mix) – 8:27
2. "Talk" (Francois K Dub) – 9:04
3. "Talk" (Junkie XL mix) – 11:45

Netherlands

A special three part single was released over three weeks in December featuring live tracks recorded at the Gelredome in 2005.

• CD1 (digipak) 3490932 released 2 December 2005

1. "Talk" (radio edit) - 4:27
2. "Swallowed In the Sea" (live) - 4:16
3. "God Put A Smile Upon Your Face" (live) - 4:22

• CD2 3490962 released 9 December 2005

1. "Talk" (album version) - 5:11
2. "Square One" (live) - 5:13
3. "Clocks" (live) - 7:05

• CD3 3490972 released 16 December 2005

1. "Talk" (live) - 5:20
2. "'Til Kingdom Come" (live) - 4:27
3. "Fix You" (live) - 7:10

Australia (Capitol 3507172)

1. "Talk" [radio edit] – 4:29
2. "Sleeping Sun" – 3:09
3. "Gravity" – 6:12

Canada and Japan (Toshiba-EMI TOCP-40185)

1. "Talk" [radio edit] – 4:29
2. "Sleeping Sun" – 3:09

U.S.

• Promo released in February 2006

1. "Talk" (edit) - 4:05
2. "Talk" (album version) - 5:12

• iTunes EP released 7 February 2006

1. "Talk" (Junkie XL mix) – 11:45
2. "Talk" (Francois K Dub) – 9:04
3. "Talk" (Thin White Duke mix) – 8:27

Note

A second, alternative version of Talk is seen on file sharing websites. This was actually the demo version of the song, which has different lyrics to the version on the album "X&Y".

External links

• Official website
• 'Talk' article at Wikia