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Track Listings
| 1. See No Evil |
| 2. Venus |
| 3. Friction |
| 4. Marquee Moon |
| 5. Elevation |
| 6. Guiding Light |
| 7. Prove It |
| 8. Torn Curtain |
| 9. Little Johnny Jewel |
| 10. See No Evil |
| 11. Friction |
| 12. Marquee Moon |
| 13. Untitled Instrumental |
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
By J. Macdonald
Format:Audio CD
An outstanding electric guitar album that has well stood the test of time, I remember first buying this the end of winter 77, a hard up student in London, after seeing Nick Kent's review in NME. I asked the record shop proprietor his opinion, he said - yeah, it's good, his voice is a bit strange though. Let me play some of it for you. And so I listened.
All these years and several formats later I'm still regularly listening to it with that same awe struck thrill I had back then. At the time I was smugly pleased with myself because nobody I knew had heard of them and, still, to this day when people are name checking their favourite albums, this one never gets mentioned, which is a bit strange when you consider that it is unquestionably the finest long playing record ever made.
OK, perhaps a bit over the top there, but let's get to the facts, just the facts. Television is neither a punk nor metal band. Nor are they prog-rock despite the 10 minute long title track. Garage band? Maybe so, but the musicianship & structure of the songs is at odds with that particular genre although the bare stripped back sound is one of 4 guys playing in a room with most of it recorded in one take. Comparisons are futile, however Television have been the inspiration for many subsequent guitar based acts. That instantly recognisable riff from the White Stripes "Seven Nation Army" is a close derivative of the bass part on "Elevation". Other bands of note under the influence of, I would say, early REM & U2, Yo La Tengo, the Blue Aeroplanes, Interpol, the Strokes, and probably Kings of Leon. You can also add to that list David Bowie in his "Scary Monsters" incarnation where he does a cover of one of Verlaine's later songs, "Kingdom Come".... Read more ›
All these years and several formats later I'm still regularly listening to it with that same awe struck thrill I had back then. At the time I was smugly pleased with myself because nobody I knew had heard of them and, still, to this day when people are name checking their favourite albums, this one never gets mentioned, which is a bit strange when you consider that it is unquestionably the finest long playing record ever made.
OK, perhaps a bit over the top there, but let's get to the facts, just the facts. Television is neither a punk nor metal band. Nor are they prog-rock despite the 10 minute long title track. Garage band? Maybe so, but the musicianship & structure of the songs is at odds with that particular genre although the bare stripped back sound is one of 4 guys playing in a room with most of it recorded in one take. Comparisons are futile, however Television have been the inspiration for many subsequent guitar based acts. That instantly recognisable riff from the White Stripes "Seven Nation Army" is a close derivative of the bass part on "Elevation". Other bands of note under the influence of, I would say, early REM & U2, Yo La Tengo, the Blue Aeroplanes, Interpol, the Strokes, and probably Kings of Leon. You can also add to that list David Bowie in his "Scary Monsters" incarnation where he does a cover of one of Verlaine's later songs, "Kingdom Come".... Read more ›
24 of 26 people found the following review helpful
By Winterland
Format:Audio CD
So much could have been learnt from Television, but if even Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd could never again get within a million light years of what this album achieved (not even by reforming the original line-up) there's nothing to learn. It was an album that came out of nowhere: Television had been tipped for greatness since 1974 but nothing they did before this album remotely hinted at it. There are not all that many albums that anyone ever calls their Favourite Ever. This is certainly one.
Best guitar-band album ever? I've not heard anything better in the 30 years since and as for before, only maybe the best 12 Led Zep & Stones tracks ever would challenge it - and they're not on one solid single flawless album, are they. (You know, of course, that I wouldn't have mentioned Jimmy Page in 1977 without spitting, but you grow up.) Otherwise the only reference points would be Jeff Buckley's "Grace" - the guitar-heavy, Zep-ish tracks; and a few tracks on "The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads" which hint, sadly, at what Verlaine/Lloyd may have gone on to if their guitar partnership had continued to develop instead of dissolving into, well, two blokes with guitars in the same band like on "Adventure."
Key moments:
Venus, all of it, the most Most MOST perfect guitar song in history;
the moment you nostalgically get, for the 3,000,001st time without tiring of it, that the beat of Marquee Moon isn't where you thought it was the first time you heard the intro;
the recurring bit in Guiding Light where the elegiac guitar solo sounds like it's going to burst into a dual-lead Wishbone Ash thing which is an illusion caused by a couple of guitar notes in the backing but still, 30 years later, I hope...... Read more ›
Best guitar-band album ever? I've not heard anything better in the 30 years since and as for before, only maybe the best 12 Led Zep & Stones tracks ever would challenge it - and they're not on one solid single flawless album, are they. (You know, of course, that I wouldn't have mentioned Jimmy Page in 1977 without spitting, but you grow up.) Otherwise the only reference points would be Jeff Buckley's "Grace" - the guitar-heavy, Zep-ish tracks; and a few tracks on "The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads" which hint, sadly, at what Verlaine/Lloyd may have gone on to if their guitar partnership had continued to develop instead of dissolving into, well, two blokes with guitars in the same band like on "Adventure."
Key moments:
Venus, all of it, the most Most MOST perfect guitar song in history;
the moment you nostalgically get, for the 3,000,001st time without tiring of it, that the beat of Marquee Moon isn't where you thought it was the first time you heard the intro;
the recurring bit in Guiding Light where the elegiac guitar solo sounds like it's going to burst into a dual-lead Wishbone Ash thing which is an illusion caused by a couple of guitar notes in the backing but still, 30 years later, I hope...... Read more ›
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Clear proof that's it best to make one masterpiece and break up because of some strange excuse about Moby Grape. Not strictly true of course since history tells us that Television did actually make more albums and reformed in 1992 for the generally decent "Television". Yet Marquee Moon is the one that counts. Listening today some 30 years after its release you can still accurately use words like "radical" and "groundbreaking" and apply them without fear or hesitation. Indeed what was fascinating was that when Television unleashed this piece of alchemy no one doubted that a page had been turned and a new chapter of music had opened upon its release. Nick Kent's brilliant and famous 1977 review in NME delineated this in a sledge hammer prose and carried it with righteous enthusiasm. He argued that -
"Sometimes it takes but one record, one cocksure magical statement, to cold call all the crapola and all purpose wheat chaff, mix'n'match, to set the whole schmear straight ... If this review needs to state anything in big bold, black type it's simply this, 'Marquee Moon' is an album for everyone, whatever their musical creeds and/or quirks. Don't let anyone put you off with jive turkey terms like 'avant-garde' or 'New York psychos'. This music is passionate, full blooded, dazzlingly well crafted, brilliantly conceived and totally accessible to anyone who has been yearning for a band with the vision to break on through into new dimensions of sonic overdrive and the sheer ability to back it up".
Kent was right, the hype surrounding Television when "Marquee Moon" came out was for once fully justified. Verlaine and Lloyd take guitar music in such totally new directions that you feel Jimi Hendrix could at last rest in peace.... Read more ›
"Sometimes it takes but one record, one cocksure magical statement, to cold call all the crapola and all purpose wheat chaff, mix'n'match, to set the whole schmear straight ... If this review needs to state anything in big bold, black type it's simply this, 'Marquee Moon' is an album for everyone, whatever their musical creeds and/or quirks. Don't let anyone put you off with jive turkey terms like 'avant-garde' or 'New York psychos'. This music is passionate, full blooded, dazzlingly well crafted, brilliantly conceived and totally accessible to anyone who has been yearning for a band with the vision to break on through into new dimensions of sonic overdrive and the sheer ability to back it up".
Kent was right, the hype surrounding Television when "Marquee Moon" came out was for once fully justified. Verlaine and Lloyd take guitar music in such totally new directions that you feel Jimi Hendrix could at last rest in peace.... Read more ›
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4.6 out of 5 stars
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
ammmmmmazing album!
I heard of these guys when radio 6 played one of their songs - I utubed and the rest is history. I have listened to the full album many times since receiving it - love it
Published 1 month ago by Ms. A. Kirk
4.0 out of 5 stars
Legendary post-punk band
Heard really good things about this band, had to buy it...it sounds like it would be right up my street
Published 2 months ago by MR D A HUNSPERGER
5.0 out of 5 stars
beautiful music
An experiment between porgressive rock and punk.
listen to the song "marquee moon". then buy the album. just as easy :)!
listen to the song "marquee moon". then buy the album. just as easy :)!
Published 2 months ago by nuno freixo
5.0 out of 5 stars
Five stars, but not enough
It was a good year, 1977, when the two sevens clashed, in some lasting respects. The British people were buying laxatives in record quantities in those dog days of Uncle Jim... Read more
Published 5 months ago by N. Jones
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Chaucerian Tom Verlaine
It was Barney Hoskyns who described Tom Verlaine as a 'gaunt bohemian prince' in an interview for the NME in 1986. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Mark Rojinsky
5.0 out of 5 stars
Still Amazing After All These Years
I have owned this majestic album since its release in 1977 when, if I recall correctly, legendary NME hack Nick Kent gave it a resoundingly positive review, lauding one of the... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Keith M
4.0 out of 5 stars
So this is where you go to hear good music?
I have seen this CD in my local record shops fro a while now. Sadly at a price I deemed too high for a band I had heard little about. Read more
Published 20 months ago by David Bentley Newman
5.0 out of 5 stars
"I remember, how the darkness doubled..."
"...I recall, lightnin` struck itself."
I was oh-so-lucky enough, seven years ago, to see Television on a rare British tour, supporting a radiant Patti Smith in Manchester. Read more
I was oh-so-lucky enough, seven years ago, to see Television on a rare British tour, supporting a radiant Patti Smith in Manchester. Read more
Published on 16 Feb 2011 by GlynLuke
5.0 out of 5 stars
Timeless
Yes an absolute classic that still sounds as brilliant as the day it was released. I bought this album soon after it came out and I played it over and over and over (especially... Read more
Published on 15 Jan 2011 by deepinmusic
5.0 out of 5 stars
Key album of the new wave
The music on Marquee Moon (1977), Television's debut album, defined the aesthetic of the New Wave as a form of detached cynicism and mystical aspect reminiscent of Lou Reed and the... Read more
Published on 4 Sep 2010 by Daniel Margrain
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