R.E.M. led me to a lot of things, including Television, and most particularly to their definitive statement, debut album Marquee Moon. Along with those first three R.E.M. albums it's probably the most enduring album in my whole record collection, though it's difficult for me to entirely nail down, even almost forty years after first hearing it. Perhaps Nick Kent did so best in his utterly glowing review of it in the NME when it first came out.
I have no idea how often I listen to and have listened to it. Probably every month, either the whole thing or parts of it. I never regret doing so, think I've finally worn out this obsession and fancy hearing something else. I'm always entirely rapt. Entranced. It's the sound of a band utterly staking out their own place in the scheme of things. They never really needed to record a single further note after releasing this. I liked Adventure and also the eponymous return in 1992 but Marquee Moon is of course the one.
Hugely influential, as it marked out a different way of thinking and a different way of being in the same way as Suicide's debut and Pere Ubu's The Modern Dance did. It was Punk but also not truly so, perhaps the most genuinely Punk statement of all.It showed the value of steering clear of the herd It also has a good claim to be the first Post Punk album. Hearing and learning about Television marked a definite but indefinable change in me. Very few albums change you. This one changed me.
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