Album: Marquee Moon
Artist: Television
Born: New York City
Released: February 1977
Genre: Art Punk
Influenced: Joy Division, Echo & the Bunnymen, Pixies, The Strokes, Interpol
One small shimmer of national pride that shines through in some of these blog selections is the superior taste of the British record-buying public; many American musicians, from Jimi Hendrix to John Grant, all had to first find success on this side of the Atlantic. Television is another case in point. Though part of the New York CBGB scene, Television enjoyed much less commercial success in the US than their peers like Patti Smith (an ex-lover of Television's lead singer Tom Verlaine) and the Ramones, but scored an improbable Top 30 UK hit in April 1977 with title track Marquee Moon, a 10-minute song split into two parts on a 7" single. Despite some critical acclaim in the US, the group were disappointed by the poor sales Marquee Moon garnered in the US (not even making the Top 200), a key factor in their decision to disband in 1978. This means there's very little live footage of the band from that era, making the BBC clip below of Television playing Foxhole (from their 1978 follow-up album, Adventure, which also sold poorly in the US) a rare YouTube gem. One possible reason the band didn't make headway in the US was that they didn't fit easily into the punk scene, their guitar work more intricate (no aggressive power chords) and their lyrics more oblique and less political than the punk norm. Television's decision to banish punk innovator and bass guitarist Richard Hell from the band before recording Marquee Moon may have also damaged their commercial allure. All that aside, this album stands with Horses as one of the best products of the 1970s New York music scene.
Several bands that toured with Television, including Blondie, also claim that the band were difficult to work with. This also comes across in live reviews from the time, with Tony Parsons describing one of their concerts as like "being at church". Like any genre, punk has a broad definition, but Television doesn't fit it very well (post-punk even less); instead the austere sound the band created had an influence on intellectual rock bands like Joy Division and Interpol. Television's dual guitar approach was also hugely influential, with Verlaine's improvised riffs offset by Richard Lloyd's more precise playing and the rigid syncopation of drummer Billy Ficca and bassist Fred Smith (creating a sound that's now often called angular, meaning strict as opposed to loose and free). One rare punk element is Verlaine's weird singing voice, like a tenor being strangled. See No Evil is the perfect illustration of how Television rescued guitar music from the pomposity of prog rock and heavy metal and created something entirely new in the process, while the title track is the best example of the band's innovative guitar sound, building on the intricate interplay of 60s rockers Moby Grape. Lyrically, many of Verlaine's songs are impressionistic (his self-anointed surname is a nod to the French poets). Venus sees Verlaine rejecting the punk nihilism of his old friend Richard Hell, but I've still no real idea what a marquee moon actually is. Perhaps Verlaine mean it looks like a marquee (i.e. fake) or remains ever present in his nocturnal urban wanderings? In any case, the fact Marquee Moon influenced new wave and generations of hipsters to come doesn't detract from the fact that the album still sounds as fresh and exciting as the day it was released.
One small shimmer of national pride that shines through in some of these blog selections is the superior taste of the British record-buying public; many American musicians, from Jimi Hendrix to John Grant, all had to first find success on this side of the Atlantic. Television is another case in point. Though part of the New York CBGB scene, Television enjoyed much less commercial success in the US than their peers like Patti Smith (an ex-lover of Television's lead singer Tom Verlaine) and the Ramones, but scored an improbable Top 30 UK hit in April 1977 with title track Marquee Moon, a 10-minute song split into two parts on a 7" single. Despite some critical acclaim in the US, the group were disappointed by the poor sales Marquee Moon garnered in the US (not even making the Top 200), a key factor in their decision to disband in 1978. This means there's very little live footage of the band from that era, making the BBC clip below of Television playing Foxhole (from their 1978 follow-up album, Adventure, which also sold poorly in the US) a rare YouTube gem. One possible reason the band didn't make headway in the US was that they didn't fit easily into the punk scene, their guitar work more intricate (no aggressive power chords) and their lyrics more oblique and less political than the punk norm. Television's decision to banish punk innovator and bass guitarist Richard Hell from the band before recording Marquee Moon may have also damaged their commercial allure. All that aside, this album stands with Horses as one of the best products of the 1970s New York music scene.
Several bands that toured with Television, including Blondie, also claim that the band were difficult to work with. This also comes across in live reviews from the time, with Tony Parsons describing one of their concerts as like "being at church". Like any genre, punk has a broad definition, but Television doesn't fit it very well (post-punk even less); instead the austere sound the band created had an influence on intellectual rock bands like Joy Division and Interpol. Television's dual guitar approach was also hugely influential, with Verlaine's improvised riffs offset by Richard Lloyd's more precise playing and the rigid syncopation of drummer Billy Ficca and bassist Fred Smith (creating a sound that's now often called angular, meaning strict as opposed to loose and free). One rare punk element is Verlaine's weird singing voice, like a tenor being strangled. See No Evil is the perfect illustration of how Television rescued guitar music from the pomposity of prog rock and heavy metal and created something entirely new in the process, while the title track is the best example of the band's innovative guitar sound, building on the intricate interplay of 60s rockers Moby Grape. Lyrically, many of Verlaine's songs are impressionistic (his self-anointed surname is a nod to the French poets). Venus sees Verlaine rejecting the punk nihilism of his old friend Richard Hell, but I've still no real idea what a marquee moon actually is. Perhaps Verlaine mean it looks like a marquee (i.e. fake) or remains ever present in his nocturnal urban wanderings? In any case, the fact Marquee Moon influenced new wave and generations of hipsters to come doesn't detract from the fact that the album still sounds as fresh and exciting as the day it was released.
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