Their music? *sigh* That’s what we're here to discuss, isn’t it? They’re very British, in the very worst way--very British as in all-too-fey. It’s pop-psychedelia. I like pop music--good pop music--nearly as much as the next Personality, but far too often the Brits (who worship the concept of it so) ruin it because (worship is like that) they’re so damned self-conscious about it...! They take their “pop” far too seriously for it to have much fizz. Americans are more crass about it by far (as in most other things), but at least we’re not sniffish. (Apologies to my Brit friends, you know I don’t mean you!) Hmm, but not so crass that we’d sling together a dozen unrelated bands, fling them at the UK and pawn the mess off to the Britcrits as a significant Next Big Thing, “Ameripop.” Not yet.

TV Personalities made some pretty good pop records, during those moments when they managed to forget the fact that they were engaged in the incredibly serious business of making pop records. (Many of them can be found on their singles comp, so-appropriately entitled Yes Darling, But Is It Art?) These guys have had even more serious moments when they’ve forgotten about Pop entirely. On They Could Have Been Bigger Than the Beatles you can hear “Three Wishes,” which is a great accompaniment for exactly the sort of grey, burnt-out November day as when I first heard it (“Outside it’s/Still raining/If I had/Three wishes/I’d ask for/Three more”), and “Perfumed Garden” from that record would sound just fine six months later. Then, just when you were growing to like them, they would get too twee by far (“The Boy In the Paisley Shirt,” same record--I won’t quote the lyrics. You don’t want me to quote the lyrics. When Brits begin to sing about clothes it’s a danger signal right there).

It’s been said that the most striking thing about them is that so much of their material is a celebration of their own weakness, to which I’d add that the same could be said for mid-70s punk (the Dead Boys, for example), except that TVP never even aspired to strength, whereas so much of punk was essentially failed heavy metal. This would make for a halfway-decent comic book--punk as fallen heavy metal; perverted into a form of anti-metal, the sworn enemy of metal. Much as matter and anti-matter: when the two entered into battle, vast quantities of energy were released and both were annihilated. TVP were oblivious to any of this, they simply wrote some tunes and went on Top Of The Pops and wallowed in their very ineffectuality. If these guys had been dogs, they’d be toy poodles. Which makes them far more decadent than early Bowie or Marilyn Manson or Frankie Goes To Hollywood or whatever band you’d care to name that was consciously hung up on its own “decadence”--far more decadent than they even realized, which is exactly as it should be.

We shan’t forget their most (in)famous tune of all, “I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives,” the musical equivalent of a Keebler cookie--baked by elves. This was forgiveable, given the subject matter; it does indeed sound rather like one of Syd’s whimsical little songs; Syd’s family were touched when the band gave them a free copy. (I wonder if they ever played it on Top Of The Pops? They must’ve. And Syd was known to watch it every week. The last thing he needed to see was a band with a song about that!) They were less touched when TV Personalities opened for David Gilmour a few years later; their lead singer took it upon himself to share the reclusive Mr. Barrett’s home address with a crowd of thousands (and who knew how many bootleggers among them?) as stage patter prior to an unscheduled rendition of “See Emily Play.” (Assholes. We believed you knew where he lived, you didn’t have to prove it. Even if you happen to love ’em for their very wretchedness, if you claim someone as a “hero,” you avoid doing anything to make their life that much less bearable.) To his credit, Gilmour threw them off the tour.

I won’t pretend to have heard all their stuff. I don’t even care to. It’s because of this woeful incident that I won’t buy any more TV Personalities records. Nonetheless, it was pleasant enough to run across them fifteen years ago; back then it was a thrill to know that this music still existed and was being made by people who were quite possibly even younger than I was. And I’ll still play their records. But I’ve already listened to them once this year, so now it’s your turn.