From: "Casey, Leo J" <CaseyL@VOLPE.DOT.GOV>
Reply-To: tv@obbard.com
To: tv@obbard.com
Subject: (TV) Warning! Long & Verbose: Why TV Was/Is Not More Commercially
Succ essful / Re: (TV) success
Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2003 16:37:06 -0500
-----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
--------------
To post: Mail tv@obbard.com
To unsubscribe: Mail majordomo@obbard.com with message "unsubscribe tv"