Air - Talkie Walkie

first listen - best thing i've heard all year but am tiring of it quickly. 'surfin on a rock(et)' is still rather fab, though.

Has this band evaporated? I do think the first one is a classic of its time, and holds up really well. Had the sudden urge to put on Talkie Walkie, and it is holding up really well for me too. In fact, for a band forgotten or ignored or generally not thought about, they put out a whole lot of really good stuff. At the very least three or four albums worth, I'd argue. They were pretty good live too.

Dunno but the track they did with Jean Michel Jarre on his last record is excellent.

Really enjoyed the latest air records (Le voyage dans la lune & Music for Museum), and Nicolas Godin's solo lp with a Bach theme was great too. Jean-Benoit has many side projects that are hit or miss, but I did like the last Darkel EP The Man Of Sorrow and some of his Starwalker tracks.

This is the only Air album I like.

all time classic air EP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RZD8Z2clDo&t=5s

can't open that vid - is it Premiers Symptomes?

Yea!

great stuff indeed, when I had worn Moon Safari out it gave a fresh perspective on the songs

Sometimes I think Talkie Walkie is their best album

Virgin Suicides is the one I return to the most

Talkie Walkie is really excellent. Tough call on the best one for me, I return to 10.000 HZ legend the most but don't necessarily think it's their best. Probably virgin suicides

Talkie Walkie hands down their best, for me.

Run is my favorite Air cut by some distance. The way the word gets repeated into 10cc oblivion is perfection.

^ same

Virgin Suicides -> 10,000Hz -> Talkie Walkie is a breathtaking run of music (and Moon Safari and Pocket Symphony bookending it ain't too shabby either)

i love this album but moon safari has never clicked for me. that's regarded to be their classic, isn't it?

does it matter

just tryna see what the fuss is about. why do you care

I'm saying, love what you love!

i've just had many breakthroughs where something i never related to or even thought i hated somehow instantly made sense to me and it's been rewarding/meaningful for me and made me a better person

anyway, this is a great record. someone in this thread or another thread said it had great chord progressions, and i mightily agree. also since getting halfway decent speakers i've gained further apprecation for it

Moon Safari is my jam, but perfectly willing to give this one another listen.

So far so good.

imho this is Air's best record. Everything before felt like a progression to this point and after felt like a step back. So many songs are just perfection on almost every level, and it flows brilliantly as an album. Universal Traveler is probably one of my favorite songs of all time.

And yeah, it's a pretty incredible record to listen to on nice headphones or speakers too

something effortless about moon safari (and premiers symptomes) that later albums don't have imo

virgin suicides ost my favorite non-moon safari album

it's all kind of similar, can't imagine actively disliking any of their work

will say that "Run" is one of the most beautiful things they ever did

moon safari > virgin suicides > 10000 hz > premiers symptomes > talkie walkie > pocket symphony

I'll take Pocket Symphony over this one

The soundtrack to Fire of Love was pretty nice

virgin suicides ost my favorite non-moon safari album

10,000 Hz Legend
Virgin Suicides ost
Premiers Symptomes
Moon Safari
Talkie Walkie
Pocket Symphony

My personal ranking, and I really like TW & PS! Just not as much. I got into Air around 2003 so TW was the first album I remember being released new from them. I think a large part of my enjoyment of Air especially around this era is kind of tainted by how many tv shows and ads used their songs. Anyway, Universal Traveler my Talkie Walkie fave by a mile.

I'm kind of with global tetrahedron - Moon Safari is nice enough but it seemed to blend in with a lot of the other Play/Melody AM/Vertigo type albums that were knocking about at the time for me to love.
I used to adore the spiky, artsy, slightly awkward direction they took on 10,000Hz Legend but it's just too much of a bumpy ride for me to fully enjoy in one sitting these days - kind of the opposite problem to Moon Safari's smoothly anodyne chill-out vibes.
Talkie Walkie though, I wasn't sure about when it came out but now I think of as their best work. It nails everything that was good about both preceding albums and every track is good for its own reason.

gyac otm about how their music was overused in TV ads etc... That sort of stuff happened a lot in the late 90s/early 00s and it could end up diminishing how certain tracks felt to me.

Should check out Pocket Symphony really

There's something so uniquely warm and comforting about Universal Traveller

Think this would be my Air playlist but open to the idea that I'm missing lots of incredible stuff:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/62cPaClcm3JpJul7TcT75k

I don’t actually have a playlist but I made one just for this.

https://i.postimg.cc/qMZmzx16/AD58168-C-33-F9-4-C07-A997-09569908770-B.jpg

Sex Born Poison is just such a weird song, honestly love the Buffalo Daughter vocals & the squelchy synths.

This is the only Air album I’ve heard that I like, but I REALLY REALLY like it

the song "Run" is one of the most arresting recordings I've ever encountered… I treasure it in ways I do for very few other pieces of music ever created…

^^^^

What about the beck collab “vagabond?”

Nigel Godrich was at the boards for this, wasn’t he? Gotta credit his taste. So many singular tracks - shoutout to “Biological” for unexpected banjo.

Meant to say, good playlist title, gyac.

I just copied yours!

listened to this for the first time in some years, this fuckin rules

My favorite album of theirs! It's so beautifully produced too.

rules for sure!

just listened to 10000 hz legend the other day, what a weird, conceptual, dark, humorous, kraftwerk-y turn to take after moon safari

10,000Hz is my favourite, but it's strange and clunky at the best of times. Talkie Walkie is them doing what they do best

first three Air albums = first three Boards Of Canada albums. If Moon Safari is their apotheosis, their MVP, their flagship; 10,000Hz the darker, twistier, more experimental album; Walkie Talkie is the one that smooths off all the edges and just goes straight for the pleasure neurons. I'm not a big fan of BoC's third album BECAUSE it sounds like an Air album, but I like Air's third album because it sounds like an Air album. Okay, where are my pills....?

this album reminds me so much of 2004 bc i was on a "i write bad reviews for stylus and i must listen to everything now" kick, i think i logged 50 new releases that year which is something i have never come close to doing since bc i take forever getting around to stuff and i actually have a life now sheesh, anyway this has endured!!!

haha, same here - i started writing for Stylus at the same time and had a similar thought process. 100% the soundtrack to a certain point in my life