Television - Marquee Moon (1977)

A fantastic guitar album - the riffs on this thing!

I dig all the mythology of this group and its relationship to CBGBs, Max's Kansas City, Patti Smith, etc. and you can readily hear the influences of predecessors such as The Velvet Underground and New York Dolls as well as contemporaries Talking Heads. To someone who came to the album many years after its release (I'm talking about me), it's simply another good album from the '70s. But to have it heard it the mileau of the 1970's NYC scene must have really been something. Sorry I missed it. If you want to hear this music as part of an evolution from the Velvets to R.E.M., it's there, but if you also want to hear it as part of an evolution from The Doors to Tom Petty, that's there too.

To aid in my understanding of the context in which this music was created, I turned to the 2011 book in the 33⅓ series:

The book places the album firmly in a noctural, lower New York City setting ("...a quintessential album of the New York night.") and that's spot on. I'll add that it seems like a very summerish album to my ears, so my preferred listing situation is outside on a hot, summer night, strolling the neighborhood, taking in the sounds while I sweat and swat at mosquitoes. At 222 pages, the book itself is one of the longer I've read in the series. The first ⅔ of the book is familiar history of that time and place, but well-done. The book really takes off on page 156 when we finally get to the album, complete with a thorough track-by-track breakdown.

My copy of the CD (a 1987 reissue) contains the full 10:40 version of the title track but, unfortunately, no lyrics.

Press of the time:

• High Fidelity: "Leader Tom Verlaine's lyrics are all but indecipherable, but it doesn't matter - the music more than makes up for it."
• Stereo Review: "sounds to me like warmed-over Bruce Springsteen"
• Record World: "The playing is solid and imaginative"
• CashBox: "While Tom Verlaine's whiny voice is nothing to write home about, the instrumentals are above average"
• Robert Christgau (A+): "I haven't had such intense pleasure from a new release since I got into Layla three months after it came out, and this took about fifteen seconds."
• Rolling Stone: "[Verlaine] structures his compositions around these spooky, spare riffs and they stick to the back of your skull."

This album placed third in The Village Voice's annual 'Pazz & Jop' critic's poll for 1977:

In its 2020 list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, Rolling Stone ranked Marquee Moon at #107:

The music on the album is quite varied. It’s Post-Punk at heart, yet it’s filled with Jazz and Rock ‘n Roll influences. It’s a New York record through and through, with many references to Manhattan throughout. The album is a solid listen from start to finish...Still such a fantastic record.

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: Did not chart
• CashBox: #158
• Official Charts (UK): #28

Tracks, ranked but it's all a close race. Certainly nothing skippable among these eight:

8. Torn Curtain
7. Elevation
6. Friction
5. Prove It
4. Venus
3. Guiding Light
2. See No Evil
1. Marquee Moon

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None.