Marquee Moon

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...;

the first four notes of the solo in Torn Curtain.

I love Little Johnny Jewel, and for that matter The Blow-Up and numerous bootlegs and the so-called Eno demos and the officially-released 70s live albums. But yes, Marquee Moon is the only album anyone actually needs by Television, or needs on a desert island actually. The extra tracks are not much cop - except LJJ of course; and it will never QUITE be the same again as your precious vinyl copy with Nick Kent's review torn out of the NME in the sleeve - oh, just me? But if you haven't heard this, do. If you like any kind of rock music you're very much more than likely to love it.

The rating system on Amazon gives an option for a 5 stars review. ie 100%. But in reality only two albums warrant a 100% rating. This one and "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea" by Neutral Milk Hotel. Very different albums but for each one you wouldn't change a note.

People bang on about the twin guitars on this album and the guitar "solo's" but really there are 4 members of the band playing as a unit like no other band in history has managed to put on record. The strength of the album is the way the four components seem to effortlessly dance around each other. Or should I say five components, as they use the spaces inbetween with just as much expertise.

The first true "Indie" record - Little Jimmy Jewel (Parts 1 & 2) - Fact

Therefore the first "Indie" band - Television - Fact

The greatest guitar album in history - Marquee Moon - Fact

I didn't buy the original green vinyl version in 1977 as they'd just run out but a pal of mine did and it came with the bonus single of Little Jimmy Jewel. Since then I've wished I had a copy. So thanks very much to those nice people at Rhino. (Ditto for the track "Adventure" on album 2 which never did get a release.)

Thanks also for the better sound on here (especially See No Evil) and the complete version of the title track that was curtailed on the original for reasons of space.

Adventure is not as bad as some here make out and for me "Ain't that nothing" stands comparison.

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. The song "Marquee Moon" is a multilayered thrill, it is a construct that builds and builds and you never want it to end. The dueling solos are perfect as is Verlaine`s voice. At one point you feel that the two guitarist might just lose it and bring down the whole edifice but the balance is perfect and the song crescendos crash into the final verse where Verlaine brings it all into a elegantly constructed final shape and form with the words -

"Well a Cadillac, it pulled out of the graveyard. Pulled up to me, all they said get in. Then the Cadillac, it puttered back into the graveyard. And me, I got out again".

Add to this the wondrous "Venus de Milo", "See no Evil" and the minor hit "Prove it", indeed why not name the lot since every song is superb and with this extended remaster you also get the epic and decadent "Little Johnny Jewel" and fascinating "out-take" versions of the albums originals. A minor point is that it would have been nice to see brutal "Foxhole" added in addition which was far and way the best track from "Adventure" the band's sadly disappointing follow up to MM.

This is the one of the albums of the 1970s along with the Clash's "London Calling", Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks" and David Bowie' "Heroes" that will resonate over many years to come. The only album of that era that comes within in a hairs breath of the emotional power contained on Marquee Moon is Joy Division's dark masterpiece "Unknown pleasures". That said quite how anyone ever picks up the gauntlet laid down by "Marquee Moon" is completely unimaginable.