Television: Marquee Moon
[purchase]
Well it seems like a lot of the SMMers are on summer vacation, so here's another one from the new guy.
Television sprung from the same mid-'70s CBGB's scene that gave us Blondie and the Ramones, but they weren't really punk or new wave. While their peers were putting out two- and three-minute bursts of pop energy, Television were stretching out, jamming with a purpose. The interplay between guitarists Richard Lloyd and Tom Verlaine was the draw, and that was never more fully realized than on the nearly 11-minute title track off their debut album from 1977.
I didn't discover Television until their 1992 reunion album. And while that's an okay album, it wasn't until I went back to their first album that I discovered what all the fuss was about. After getting past Verlaine's adenoidal vocals, hearing this song was a revelation.