(TV) Warning! Long & Verbose: Why TV Was/Is Not More Commercially Succ essful / Re: (TV) success

["Casey, Leo J" <CaseyL@VOLPE.DOT.GOV>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark G. Ryan 
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2003 6:38 AM
To: tv@obbard.com
Subject: (TV) a capella?

>In any case, it is more melodic than the average 
>Television song. A case could also be made
>for "Breakin' My Heart."  

>There are a few songs from Tom Verlaine's solo 
>work that haven't much melody on the verse but have 
>a distinctive melody in the chorus, e.g. "Mary Marie".  

>Public taste just needs to get educated not to expect 
>a sing-along.

-----Original Message-----
From: Murray Ramone 
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2003 12:38 PM
To: tv@obbard.com
Subject: Re: (TV) success

>the best songs never get recorded
>the best recordings never get released
>the best releases never get played

>Cant remember who said that first, but 
>its got a lot of truth in it
-----------------------------

For several months I've been contemplating writing 
an essay to MM List on what exactly it is about 
Tom Verlaine's music (and Television's) that 
prevents it from being more appealing or 
commercial to people (in 1970s, and 80s, and now).  

There's really too separate questions: 

a) Why was Verlaine's/Television's music so 
unappealing to the mass audience (by 'mass 
audience' I'm not restricting it to be just 
Frank Zappa's girl-archetype pop consumer; my use 
of the term would be broader, e.g., it might 
include Tom Petty or Black Sabbath or Nirvana 
fans)?

b) [somewhat more puzzling] why hasn't 
Verlaine's/Television's music met with 
more success among the [dare I say it] 'more 
knowledgeable', possibly more open-minded 
fans of say, REM, U-2, The Church, Johhny Marr, 
[or even Springsteen], etc., [fill in your 
favorite], etc., or even with the younger 
generation of fans of today's more 
'progressive' rock (many of which bands 
were influenced by the group Television)? 
You'd think, these fans might be more open 
to the twin guitar attack and heroics in 
Verlaine's/Television's music? 

I originally decided not to send this because 
to do the subject justice is both difficult---as 
so much about music is ineffable--and it can be 
very time consuming to try and polish/word-smith 
ideas to an acceptable degree.

But given the flurry of recent e-mails [especially 
some interesting ones posted to List from Mark G. 
Ryana], I'm sending this skeleton/outline of my 
piece along---warts and all; otherwise, I don't 
think I'd ever get around to finishing it. (It's  
'arguments really only addresses Question #1 
above.)

If I had followed through on fleshing out my outline 
five or six points would have been explored in some 
detail. 

Here are the principal musical reasons for this 
music not having more success (I will not address 
here the areas of poor management, label backing, 
TV's personality, etc., ).

(1) 'Most' people's reaction to Verlaine's 
singing voice; 

(2) So ('too') many things going on simultaneously 
in his songs for the 'average' listener to 
take-in or appreciate;

**(3) [Very closely connected to (2) above] 
The actual melodic structure and complexity of 
his songs work against their potential commercial 
success. E.g., he will have a killer 
guitar/melody/hook starting off a song; 99.9% of 
other bands would simply continue the hook 
unvaryingly throughout their song. They'd beat it to 
death, but the other bands would be rewarded with a 
hit-song with listeners. Verlaine, however, will 
after several lines dramatically switch to a 
different melody/hook, which loses many 
listeners who are/were still admiring his first one. 
 
Many of Verlaine's songs, for instance on "Dreamtime" 
(but true of all his albums), have enough melodies 
for two or three separate songs.  E.g., in the song 
"Mr. Blur" Verlaine starts out with an almost sinister, 
creepy guitar riff/melody, but then he dramatically 
shifts to more upbeat Country & Western-tinged, twangy, 
happy melody/chord (the shift occurs as he sings the 
lyrics "Very, most sincerely yours"). It is as if 
there's two separate songs going on at once 
in parallel. 

These multiple parts/melodies can cause disparate 
(and possibly confusing) emotional responses in 
listeners---take for example the song "Fragile". 
The song begins with guitar chords that evokes  
a wistful tenderness, but then these chords are 
quickly replaced by more aggressive, almost 
ferocious style of playing. (Note how difficult 
it is to describe this with the written word, 
rather than having someone who hasn't ever heard 
the music have it played for them while one makes 
one's points---it's enough to make me despair that 
I don't have the talent to do a proper analysis.) 
 
Jon Pareles articulated some of what I'm 
trying to articulate when he wrote:  

"Verlaine's basic rhythm has been a 4/4 any 
Stones fan can dance to, and most of his songs 
break cleanly into verses and choruses. (One 
of his favorite devices is to use blue or 
modal chords in the verse, then switch 
to triumphant major chords for the chorus, 
as in Dreamtime's 'Mr. Blur', 'Always', and 
'A Future in Noise') ... Although each song 
has a specific set of more or less interlocking 
riffs, Verlaine doesn't mesh them into 
funk polyrhythms; he wants you to hear 
the battle of the instruments, the parallax 
down-beat (when he called his publishing 
company Double Exposure Music, he undercounted), 
and he disrupts any impending stasis with 
a new riff or solo or a random plunk. Like 
dreams, the songs are buffeted from 
within and without; they're not fixed 
objects, they're convergences of events. 
If that sounds like a notion from jazz or 
psychedelia, well, maybe."   

I claim that it is precisely this wonderful 
richness and tension/battle between the 
instruments that loses most listeners.

(4) The 'too' poetic/obscure lyrics; 

(5) Too jazzy or complex for the 'rock' 
audience, too rollicking and crunchy for 
the jazz audience.

(6) Tom's music is of too high a quality (yes, 
of course! (Maybe, a more detailed case will 
be presented about (6) someday.)

	Leo
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