Song of the Day: Television - Marquee Moon (1977) One of the things Ive always loved about really delving into music and film history is being able to put innovations and stylistic developments into context and pseudo-chronologies. I love trying to figure out what of any given thing was First. I love tracing the roots of ideas back to their origins. And of course, a lot of it is debatable as well, and I love the debate. Trying to figure out whether any given thing was the first of something, or whether that doesnt quite count and the first is actually this other thing over here. I love reading the arguments and thoughts behind what the writers of history think, and then developing my own counter-arguments when I find myself in disagreement. And so, with any given thing, I usually have an idea in my head of where it started. Sometimes the ideas in my head are the generally accepted right answers, and other times they differ slightly or substantially. A few weeks back I wrote about the Spoon song Got Nuffin, and I introduced by talking about how Indie Rock is probably my favorite musical style. The heart wants what the heart wants, I said. Its difficult to fully explain what Indie Rock is. The terms comes from Independent rock, meaning artists that arent on major labels. But thats not really an accurate guideline anymore, as so many of the best Indie Rock bands ARE on major labels now. The major labels figured out these bands are profitable, and that was the end of that. Probably the easiest way to think about Indie Rock is that its the best current term for what was Alternative music in the 90s and College Rock in the 80s. But when and with whom did it start? There are a lot (A LOT) of answers, but two possibilities seem to have reason above the pack to become the most common choices: Either the Velvet underground invented Indie Rock with their debut in 67, or R.E.M. did it with their first EP in 81. I understand the temptation and reasoning behind both of these choices, but I also disagree with them. The Velvets were a little too early for me; Im good with calling them the first Art Rock band, but there was too much of a gap between their demise and the advent of punk for me to really think of them as launching a style. R.E.M., conversely, were too late. Their first recordings were already after the peaks of bands like Joy Division, Talking Heads, Wire, and others, and if they werent Indie Rock, I dunno what the hell youd call them. I think Television was the first Indie Rock band. Their debut came out in early 77, about six months before Talking Heads first album, and it has all of the elements of the proto-typical Indie Rock sound. Furthermore, they dont fit into any other label. They get thrown in with the NYC punk movement because they came from CBGBs during the same era as The Ramones, Blondie, and Johnny Thunders, but its difficult to call these guys punk, unless youre using punk as a catch-all term for any rock that was against the grain of the mainstream. To start with, Television was all about guitar solos. Every song on the debut had a guitar solo, and most of them had two (one for each guitarist in the band; both guys played lead). The Ramones, by contrast, created their entire sound around power chords and the absence of guitar solos, because that was too pretentious, like Led Zeppelin were becoming in the mid-to-late 70s. Television figured out a way to meld punk aesthetics with a less aggressive, more melodic and musically advanced sound, and that describes the core of what Indie Rock is. Marquee Moon is the title track and epic centerpiece/Side one closer of their debut album, and its everything Television was at their best. Patience, contrast, build-up, release, repeat. I often joke that angular is the most overused adjective in the history of rock criticism, and these guys are probably the band that necessitated that word as a descriptive tool in the rock critic arsenal. The Strokes modeled their whole sound after Television. (And I dont mean that as a pejorative.) Sadly, Television was not long lived. Their debut was hailed as a masterpiece, their follow-up, 78s Adventure was good but a bit of a let-down, and that was that. A few reunion tours and an early 90s attempt at another studio album followed, but these guys basically had a two year career. Sigh. At least it was an amazing two years, and their debut still stands as one of the best albums of its era. Maybe THE best.
Posted on: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 19:33:18 +0000
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