Television
“Nobody fucks with the government and lives.” – Tom Verlaine
“A psychedelic album is an album that when you put it on, if you listen to both sides, when it's over, your perceptions have been changed and I think that our record can do that.” – Richard Lloyd, describing Marquee Moon
“Strung out, paranoid, and jumpy…and cool as hell.” – Capn Marvel
Albums Reviewed:
Television was probably the first indie-rock band, and as such would’ve been a lot more successful had they come into being ten years later once indie-rock actually existed. If Pitchfork and all the other indie publications that turn Devendra Banhart and Deerhoof into household names (well, among their sidechop-sporting readers, that is) and enable bands to have long, winding careers without ever cracking the Billboard Top 100 had existed in 1977, there’s a good chance Television would still be going strong today, nearing their 30th year together. Oh, sure, indie people know all about Television (I assume…if they don’t, they’re total poseurs who deserve to be flogged righteously), but without the organized, sustaining indie structure that exists today and pushes bands like the Arcade Fire and albums like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot into the mainstream consciousness (relatively), Television and their aggressively original, “indie” music withered away and died a sad death a year after the release of their debut album Marquee Moon, which is justly held up by many (including yours truly) as one of the greatest records ever recorded. Television was not only a product of the mid-late seventies New York CBGB’s punk scene, they were the first band of their ilk to play CBGB’s, and many of the club’s first shows once it became the center of that whole thing were originally conceived as just a showcase for Television. But while Blondie and the Ramones and Talking Heads and even Patti Smith (sort of) made it big, Television never did, and so David Byrne and Debbie Harry and Joey Ramone became cultural icons while Tom Verlaine remains just a footnote. And while I have nothing against David Byrne or Debbie Harry or Joey Ramone and in fact like them a lot…sorry, but that is crap.
I suppose
part of the reason the band never hit it huge is that Marquee Moon didn’t come out until 1977, by which time the Sex
Pistols had broken out and the punk “image,” as defined by them, had become too
pervasive. If you can understand that
the “punk” scene in
Television’s history is neither long nor sordid. Verlaine, Ficca, and bassist Richard Hell formed a three-piece in 1973 called The Neon Boys, who then changed their name to Television later that year when Richard Lloyd joined on second awesomely talented guitar. Mr. Hell left in 1975, replaced by then-Blondie bassist Fred Smith (good choice there, buddy…). As I mentioned before, they were the kings of CBGB’s from 1975-1977, at which point all those other CBGB’s bands blew up while Marquee Moon, despite being ONE OF THE GREATEST ALBUMS EVER RECORDED, tanked wholeheartedly. They recorded a much-weaker but still pretty good follow-up in 1978, then broke up. They re-formed in 1992, released an astoundingly strong reunion album without anyone actually noticing, then broke up again almost immediately, and that’s where they still stand today. From left to right in the picture above are drummer Ficca, lead singer and lead guitarist #1 Verlaine, bassist Smith, and lead guitarist #2 Lloyd. If Verlaine looks abnormally sickly to you, that’s how he always looks, so no, it’s not abnormal.
And onto the reviews!
Marquee Moon (1977)
Rating: 10
Best Song: “Marquee
Moon”
I’ve been putting off reviewing this album, and Television as a whole, for a little while because it’s easier, at least for me, to write about albums and bands I couldn’t give two shits about than those few I cherish. Not to say that my reviews about albums or bands I personally love don’t turn out the best. They often do. Hell, they usually do. They just, you know, take a while to write. I can dust off a random CCR album in 20 minutes, but you know how long it took me to write that American Idiot review? Let’s just say you don’t want to know, although its length will not be approached by anything else any time soon, if only because there aren’t too many other records that can so easily lead me into a two page rant against current popular culture. However, this is one of my five or ten favorite records of all time at this point (when I first started this site, I hadn’t even heard it, though I had heard of it), so it obviously must be reviewed. And so, without further ado, here we go…
This is probably the quintessential “undiscovered” album. I mean, it’s a famous album and a lot of people have heard it, but how many people listen to Television in high school? Or have even heard of them? Fucking not many. Knowing and loving every little note of this thing is like being in on some great big wonderful secret. The band came from that whole mid-late seventies New York CBGB’s punk scene, but by the time this came out 10-minute epics with intertwining modal guitar solos and vague, disturbing lyrics were certainly not able to be classified as “punk” anymore. And if it wasn’t punk, and it certainly wasn’t AM rock or Top 40 pop, what, therefore, was it? While the critics rightly adored it, the public had no idea, so no one bought the damn thing and the band broke up a year later, leaving the record to be discovered either accidentally or by word of mouth one person at a time, which is how it still is today. It’s one of my roommates’ favorite albums of all time, too, and he only knows about it because I showed it to him. And I only knew about it because I downloaded it on a lark after Capn Marvel gave it an A+. See what I mean by “undiscovered?” The number of people who would embrace this as one of their favorites of all time but have not heard it is, at least I believe, exceedingly high. And I’m just doing my part to spread the word.
So what does this record sound like? Well, to be honest, like nothing else I’ve ever heard, including all (two) of Television’s other studio releases. To completely rip off Capn Marvel, the most accurate description I can give it is that it looks like the album cover, and, even more specifically, like Tom Verlaine’s picture on the album cover. Dark, lanky, wiry…fuck, I don’t know. But it sounds fantastic. The one thing you might have to get used to is Verlaine’s slightly whiney and off-key vocal style, but it fits the rest of the music to a tee. The way he drags out the vowels, bending his voice in this alternately totally paranoid and extremely confident way. It’s fantastic, and the periodic backing vocals on tracks like “See No Evil” and “Venus de Milo” are the same way. Let’s just get it out in the open that no one in this band is an objectively talented “singer.” But the weariness of Verlaine and the fun and sloppiness of the backup vocals is just perfect. “I see noooo…EVIL!!!!!!” “Huh?????” “I fell right into the arms…of Venus…de Miiiilooooooo.” I really can’t communicate how perfect some of these vocal phrasings are. Just wonderful.
But anyone buying a Television album for the vocals is severely retarted. Musically, this band, at least on this album, absolutely kicks. The rhythm section, expecially Ficca on the kit, provides some of the most impressive work you’re likely to hear coming out of this time period. They can go hard-rocking on “See No Evil,” spy movie funky/cool on “Friction,” simultaneously danceable and creepy on the title track, light on “Guiding Light,” playful on “Prove it,” and epic on “Torn Curtain.” The drumwork is creative and intricate while also rocking the fuck out when necessary and fitting the music perfectly. Ficca’s hi-hat usage is fantastic, some of the best I’ve heard outside of Stew Copeland. Awesome.
But, see, I didn’t even notice how nasty the drumming was until like the tenth time I listened to this thing, because the dueling high-pitched guitars of Verlaine and Lloyd are THE singular ingredient that makes Television TELEVISION. If you have no tolerance for guitar solos, you can probably jump ship right here, but assuming you don’t mind them, the guitars on this record are some of the most unique, creative, and idiosyncratic you will ever hear. At no point on this album are both guitarists not doing something cool at the same time. My favorite single guitar line might be the main ascencing/descending part in “Venus de Milo,” which is so gorgeous it doesn’t even know what to do with itself, but the truth is you could go anywhere on this album and find some sort of guitar work that would absolutely blow your mind. The guitars sound nothing like what you would consider traditional seventies guitar wanking to be like. There are no blues scales whatsoever, and the main parts consist of inconceivably intricate and painstakingly thought-out sequences of notes along modal scales that sound as far removed from Jimmy Page as current Radiohead. No matter what the band is trying to do stylistically, these interlocking guitar parts will always be there. And they don’t always have to be pretty. The main line in “See No Evil” rocks hard, as does that in “Friction.” “Guiding Light” is practically a power-ballad and even has light pianos in the background, so the main part is as quiet as can be, but then the solo is breathtaking, almost transportative. “Prove it” seems like a relatively unassuming goof track (beginning with the couplet “docks, clocks!”), so the plucking at the beginning is suitably jumpy and bouncy, but then it picks up its intensity along with the song. Each track has about four or five different parts, and by that I don’t mean “sections,” since this is definitely not prog-rock. What I mean is that each verse, chorus, bridge, and what-have-you has its own separate, distinct, original interlocking dual-guitar extravaganza. And this is still before you get to the solos. And I shouldn’t have to tell you what the solos sound like.
I’m refraining from discussing specific tracks in detail in this review because I’m trying to communicate how original and enthralling both the general style and the skills in both playing and composition of this band are, but I will nevertheless take a moment now to delve into this record’s title track, a near-eleven minute epic (one of just two lengthy ones on the album; these guys may play their guitars like gods, but they never go too far) that probably ranks as one of my 20 or so favorite songs of all time. The tension and buildup is insane, from the perfectly written two-guitar part that’s probably been stolen by about 100 ass indie bands by this point (one playing repeated off-beat two-note “duh-duh”’s, the other on-beat high-pitched trills over the top) to the expertly layered bass and drum parts that always come in one at a time just to make you realize how much care and planning must have gone into this damn song. The verses are brilliant, then the chorus breakdowns are even better, and the song builds to a climax around minute three or so, then repeats a verse, then vanishes…but no, see, you’ve got seven minutes left. The “duh duh” comes back, followed by the bassline and increasingly intricate drumwork, but where’s the other guitar? The trilling one? It’s gone, but don’t worry, because that motherfucker’s gonna solo, and even though it’s gonna go on for three minutes or something, the rhythm section just keeps subtly speeding up and building the tension, and an extra guitar occasionally blasts into the left speaker, gradually louder and more frequently, until this little “duh duh” riff has turned into one of the most spectacular solo freakout sections in music history. So this goes on for about three minutes, then we get a sequence of one-note ascending lines, then a sequence of ascending chord lines playing basically the same notes as before, and then both guitars just start hammering away at the same ascending lines, followed by the drums and bass locking into step as the band turns into a lumbering monster of pure power for about thirty seconds before it all breaks down into all these detailed guitar arpeggios that sound like harps (seriously). Then it goes silent except for a faint cymbal in the background before the main verse chords/melody reappear for an extra minute as a coda. And don’t let my overly technical description of the song make you think it’s just a triumph of musicianship, because it’s so much more. It’s one of those emotive and gripping songs I’ve ever heard, and it’s up there with “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and “Stairway to Heaven” in terms of both quality and epic-ness, only IT SOUNDS NOTHING AT ALL LIKE THOSE TWO SONGS. I keep saying that the most impressive acts to me are those who produce music that no other artist at any other time could have produced, and that is the reason I adore this song so much. I don’t think anyone else could have ever come close to writing “Marquee Moon.”
The only track on this record that doesn’t give me a total orgasm is the somewhat annoying “Elevation” (which would be the best song on either of Television’s other records, both of which I like, by the way). The epic depresso-closer “Torn Curtain” is a little sluggish at the start, but the guitar solos in the last few minutes might be the most breathtaking on the record, and ending such an album with anything less than a slow, heavy epic would do it a disservice. I simply cannot recommend this album highly enough. It’s so incredibly original…no one sounded like Television prior to 1977, no one sounded like Television in 1977, and no one has sounded like Television since 1977 (including Television themselves). It is an utterly unique record, one that goes beyond a simple description of something like “really great, moody guitar solos.” And in addition to all the musical excellence, variety, and power, it’s got attitude, man. Real attitude. For one album, in 1977, Television were one of the greatest bands to ever walk the earth. It didn’t last long, but at least we have Marquee Moon to “prove it.”
Adventure (1978)
Rating: 7
Best Song: “Days”
The stereotypical reason that 2nd albums are so often not as good as their predecessors is that a band uses up all of its “A” material on their debut, then has to scrape together their second from the stuff that didn’t make the first album and/or whatever they’re able to work up in the studio. While that’s often a pile of crap, Adventure is, unfortunately, an example of why the stereotype exists at all. Sometimes it’s dead-on. So while this is by no means a bad record, the vibe the band captured when they were recording Marquee Moon (which they did practically live in the studio with just a few takes per song, since they had been playing all that stuff since 1975), and a vibe that had not been captured by anyone prior to that point ever, is long gone.
When I first heard this album, I actually hated it and was ready to give it a 5 or something. Ofcourse, I had every note of Marquee Moon fresh in my head and was comparing it to what had become one of my favorite records of all time, which is like comparing Planet Waves to Blonde on Blonde or something and therefore massively idiotic. Truth is, this is just a pretty normal-sounding indie guitar-pop album (sorry to pretty much regurgitate the sentiments of Capn Marvel word for word again, but what can you do? He’s right). No one else at any time could have ever made Marquee Moon. A fuckload of people at a fuckload of times could make this thing, not only because the songs aren’t as good (which they aren’t, nearly), and not only because the guitar work isn’t quite as interesting (which it’s not, but there’s not that big of a difference), but because the dark, black, “lanky” vibe or whatever bullshit I spouted about the first album is gone, replaced by a rather generic-looking bright red album cover and unfortunately normal-looking red fleece on Richard Lloyd. The only two songs that sound like they could have been written by the Marquee Moon band are actually the only two songs from the band’s old set they chucked onto this thing. “Foxhole” is the most Marquee Moon-sounding track here, and, to be quite honest, it sounds like that album would sound like if the songs were clumsy and awkward, and I can see why it didn’t make the cut the first time around. The “Foxhole, foxhole!” chants are just dumb, and the main riff isn’t all that interesting either. It’s supposed to rock but it doesn’t, and there isn’t even a second guitar doing anything interesting over the top until the bridge and obligatory solo come along. “Careful” is an oldie, too, and it’s more of a “Prove it”-type goof track, only I’m gonna take a guess that the multi-tracked harmony “I dooooon’t care!” parts weren’t in the original arrangement. Overall, it’s probably one of the better tracks here, with some nice guitarwork (ofcourse) and a jaunty feel I thoroughly endorse, but there’s a reason Marquee Moon didn’t have any multi-tracked chorus vocals. They wouldn’t have fit. Just Tom’s yelps and some sloppy backup yells, that was it, thanks. I do not agree with Television’s writing “commercial” pop hooks with harmonies and crap. And they’re a bunch of other places on this record, too. Not cool.
So anyway, the rest of the record is pretty much split between more pseudo-commercial pop-rockers and a bunch of slow, extended tracks that attempt to capture the mood of “Guiding Light” or possibly “Torn Curtain” but don’t really do it that successfully. The melodies, on the whole, are more generic-sounding than the debut, and the rhythm section is disturbingly average throughout these proceedings. I don’t enjoy the mild reverb inserted onto Ficca’s snare drum, either. None of this makes a difference when I’m deciding what the best track is, though, because I generally like whichever songs have the best guitar hooks anyway, vocal melody or not, and thankfully there are still plenty left. A Television album without guitar hooks is like Paris Hilton without syphilis. It will simply never happen. “Glory” and “Days” set the album’s tone early with their more obvious melodic hooks, occasional harmonies, and general lack of rock power, but the dueling guitars are still there, so whatever. They’re agreeable! “Days” is actually quite good, and the guitar parts at the start are probably more intricate than anything on Marquee Moon, which therefore makes it the obvious choice for the album’s best offering. Although the song as a whole is a wimpy pop number, the guitar melodies remind me favorably of those from “Venus de Milo,” so I say eat it like Bran Flakes and then shit all day because you ate too many Bran Flakes.
The second half of the record is where you’re gonna find most of those long and/or boring tracks I spoke of earlier, with the only exception being the awkward single “Ain’t That Nothin’,” which is so unlike Marquee Moon (except for the guitar intro that sounds a lot like “See No Evil,” only with shit for brains) I don’t even know where to begin, so let’s just move on. “Carried Away,” “The Fire,” and “The Dream’s Dream” all basically try to do the same thing. While one may be more of a “dirge” and another may claim to have more of a reggae influence in the liner notes (though it doesn’t. At all.), they’re all slower than anything on Marquee Moon outside of “Torn Curtain,” they all probably go on for a little too long, and the main melody of all of them isn’t much to look at. However, perversely, the length of all three leads to their, at the end, being generally solid tracks, as Verlaine and Lloyd use their lengths as excuses to solo a bunch of times, and while their work may not be as immediately enthralling as what they did on Marquee Moon, it’s only a goddamn year later, so you know it’s still gonna be good. The last few minutes of “The Dream’s Dream” in particular are simply lovely. Great use of harmonics and crap that I don’t know about because I don’t play guitar. I will now move onto another paragraph.
The copy I have of this also has a bunch of bonus tracks (including the would-be title track that’s better than anything actually on the record and has no excuse for being left off…the intro sounds like ZZ Top!), but they’re bonus tracks so fuck ‘em. This album does not rock, it goes too slow, and the songs are such a drastic step down from Marquee Moon that hearing this one after completely digesting Television’s first album is a shocking event. However, the dueling guitar histrionics of Verlaine and Lloyd are still present, accounted for, and appreciated, so what would be a thoroughly mediocre album of generic-sounding guitar pop numbers is dragged up to “good” by a whole bunch of awesome guitar parts and solos, just like a similar bunch of guitar goodies dragged Marquee Moon up from “excellent” to “absolutely godlike.” Still, there’s nothing on here you won’t find done better on Marquee Moon, so I’d say only consider getting it after you’ve gotten your fill of the first one and you crave more Television. But even then, I say go get the reunion album first.
The Blow-Up (1982)
Rating: 8
Best Song: “Marquee
Moon”
It’d be nice if there existed somewhere a live Television recording that could match the sound quality of Live at Leeds or Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out, but seeing as how the band were never popular and broke up a year after their first album came out, I suppose the absence of something like this should come as no surprise. What we do have, however, is this, and while I’m not gonna go so far as to say most of these live performances are better than their studio counterparts (though “Friction” kills here, and the three songs they take from Adventure are sure a lot better), let’s just say that Television live were a very positive proposition. Everything’s a little sloppier, faster, and more ragged than the studio recordings (as you’d expect), and it proves that the massive rock power the band harnessed when they recorded Marquee Moon was no accident. They always sounded that great. So they only lost their vibe when they actually decided to give a shit about studio “craftsmanship,” i.e. on Adventure, and the “live in the studio” production of Marquee Moon is a much more accurate picture of what this band was usually like. Needless to say, the playing and energy on this record is fucking fantastic, and the only reason it’s not getting a grade higher than 8 is that it sounds HORRIBLE. It appears to be the result of some dude just standing in the back of the club with a tape recorder bootlegging the concert (which, to be fair, is probably not that far from the truth), and everything is so muffled, flat, and fuzzy that it’s amazing you can sense the power here at all, which is a testament to how much the band must’ve ruled had you actually been there to see them. Some songs sound less awful that others, but to my ears the better-sounding ones are almost uniformly on disc two, which means it’s probably just that I’ve gotten used to how awful the recording sounds by that point. Several times on disc one the music is interrupted by a few seconds (occasionally up to ten) of fuzz noise that sounds like a car radio momentarily losing a station’s signal, which is just pathetic. I’d like to think that the only reason this is in such wide circulation is that, simply, there are no other options if you want live Television material, because were there something decent-sounding lying around from the same time period, at least from what I can tell on here, it might be almost as good as Marquee Moon. So hard is the ruling on the display.
Songwise, the band wisely sticks to their better material. They break out all of Marquee Moon except for “Guiding Light” and “Torn Curtain” and take only “Foxhole” “Ain’t That Nothin’,” and “Careful” (here listed as “I Don’t Care,” its original title), i.e. the three most hard-rocking Marquee Moon-wannabe tracks, from Adventure, and this leads to a consistently hard-rocking, powerful set (or at least it would if it didn’t sound like crap). We’re also treated to a 15-minute extendo-track called “Little Johnny Jewel” (which rules) and was apparently a regular part of their live set, as well as three covers, a 13th Floor Elevators song I’ve never heard here listed as “The Blow-Up” (not its actual title), and two songs you wouldn’t expect from these guys: “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” They sound exactly like you’d expect Television covering them with horrid sound quality to sound like, I guess, though I will compliment Tom’s vocals on “Satisfaction,” which, at least at the start, sound very admirably like Sir Mick’s. As far as which songs are better than others, for the most part you can just refer to my comments from the previous two reviews. “Marquee Moon” is still one of the greatest songs ever written. As I mentioned before, “Friction” destroys here. The recording quality of “Elevation” is especially bad (even for this record), so I suppose that’s a relative loser. One cool thing is that the guitar solos of both players are frequently different than on record, and another cool thing is that the complicated interlocking guitar parts of songs like “Venus de Milo” are re-created flawlessly on-stage, even with the sweaty, unkempt atmosphere of the whole show, and even with the whole show recorded on a tape recorder stuck up someone’s asshole.
So, fantastic songs, fantastic playing, fantastic band at the (all-too-brief) peak of their powers, but sound quality that frequently doesn’t even meet minimum standards of acceptability. Nothing much else to say. Television ruled.
Television (1992)
Rating: 8
Best Song: “No
Glamour For Willi”
The early nineties being that crazy time when “alternative” and “underground” rock music finally went mainstream, I suppose it’s not that surprising that Television picked 1992 to randomly re-unite and record a comeback album. No, what’s surprising is not that Television picked this time period to try a comeback, but that they decided to try a comeback at all. While they were a pretty “hip” influence for bands to claim they had, the commercial cache of Television hadn’t grown one iota in the fifteen years and three presidential administrations since their last record album, so when this humble self-titled disc was launched on the general public with no fanfare whatsoever in 1992, I’m not sure anyone outside of big-time Television fanatics bought it. It was so unpopular that it’s actually out-of-print now, I think. I had to get a used copy from some CD Warehouse send to me for $3.99 plus shipping. The case is all cracked and nasty, and to be quite honest I’m surprised the CD plays all the way through without skipping. Blargh.
The fact that a reunion album recorded fifteen years after the band broke up is so fucking good should show you just how fantastic Television were as songwriters and musicians. Ofcourse it’s not gonna stack up to Marquee Moon for quality, but what albums can? Not too many, and if you’re looking for an indie/underground rock album to match up to Television’s debut, you may never find one at all (it’s that good). It sounds very different from the band’s two seventies records, as well. Very subdued, but not in a disturbingly dirgey and/or poppy way like on Adventure. The ingredients are actually more Marquee Moon-ish than those that went into Adventure’s stew, only you add fifteen years of age and subsequent mellowing. Tom’s vocals are still recognizable as Tom’s, but he’s much calmer here and sings in a much lower pitch. The rhythm section is still solid, and the guitar lines are still fantastic, but they don’t GRAB you like they did on Marquee Moon. They don’t sound rushed, half-assed, or unnatural either, though. It’s the logical progression of what fifteen years would do to Marquee Moon, even if it sounds nothing like Marquee Moon, if that makes sense.
Take the opening “1880 or So,” for instance. Just a simple repetitive 4/4 groove without any real fills to speak of, Tom’s almost croaking vocals, and two guitars trading off utterly brilliant hooks and melodies that sound like something two dudes could relax and play rather than the balls-out rocking intricacy that was on Marquee Moon. It’s like the band members have no intention (or ability, even) to rip us new assholes because they just want to sit back and chill and be old, but they’re still nasty at the guitar and they still have a keen knowledge of what constitutes good music, so they give us this deceptively simple little tune, and others like it as well, like the undisputed highlight of the album (for me, at least) “No Glamour for Willi,” whose interweaving guitar lines during the “no glamour for Willi…she says that’s fine…” chorus are absolutely magical, but again in a relaxed, subtle way. I can easily picture Verlaine and Lloyd calmly standing on stage, swaying back and forth a tiny bit but not too much a la Tom Petty playing “Free Fallin’” for a TV special or something, with their fingers just dancing up and down the fretboard creating these ridiculous little guitar melodies. And dig Verlaine’s wah-wah solo in the bridge, too. Unexpected, but ace. These guys have no business making music this good, this subtle, this intricate, and this cool (this album blows Adventure out of water in that nebulous “coolness” factor) at this advanced age.
Elsewhere on the album, we have a few pseudo-rockers (“Shane, She Wrote This” and “In World,” the former of which reminds me favorably of “Friction” in that it could probably be in a cool spy movie) and a number of slow, haunting, melancholy songs that definitely do that type of schtick better than the Adventure material (geez, I gave that album a 7? Then why do I seem to be ripping it so much in this review? It’s a good album, dammit!), like “Rhyme” and “Mars,” the latter of which has the most interesting vocal performance from Verlaine (it’s occasionally freaky, actually, very well done…he sounds disturbed when he starts “losing it,” as it were). “Call Mr. Lee” is more bad-ass sounding spy music, only this time of the slower variety, “Beauty Trip” and “This Tune” are a couple solid tracks more like the first couple I mentioned last paragraph, only more “bouncy,” and “Rocket” actually sucks out loud in a quite offensive way. It’s an interesting experiment, I figure, and it’s certainly not the type of thing old guys would normally try in 1992, so in that sense it’s admirable, but the lack of melody and structure really bothers me. Maybe I’m an ass to demand melody and structure in my songs, but they’re things I generally find important. Even on that one, though, the guitars are pretty interesting. They’re the common thread woven through all the tracks here. Just lovely interlocking guitar part after lovely interlocking guitar part. Richard Lloyd and Tom Verlaine were one of the most original and talented guitar duos in rock history, and even after taking a break from each other for 15 years they still “had it.” The guitar parts are generally more relaxed and subtle than before, like I said, but the fact that they’re still so wonderfully intricate and melodic shows their genius almost better than anyway. If they’re old and they don’t give a shit about kicking ass anymore and their guitars still sound this great, imagine what they sounded like at their apex! And then go get Marquee Moon. NOW.
I know I keep saying it, but this album has no business being this good, especially considering no one bought it, the band broke up again almost immediately, and it’s now out of print (but you can get your own personal copy of Yes’ 1991 classic Union TODAY!!!!). When Television was young, they were talented, original, melodic, cool, and they kicked ass. They don’t kick ass anymore, but they’re still talented, original, melodic, and, above all, cool, even at whatever age they were when they made this thing. Hell, I’m pretty sure that if they randomly got together again now they’d make an album just as good as this one. But they won’t, leaving this as the last, totally unheard, high-quality gasp from a phenomenal band that never found the audience they deserved. Oh well.