#marqueemoon

Marquee Moon is the debut album by the American punk rock band Television, released on this day in 1977.

Hand-written playlist for a tape with Big Star’s Third/Sister Lovers on one side and Television’s Marquee Moon on the other, compiled by me, summer 1991.

This one is bit of a companion piece to my Alex Chilton post a few days ago. It's the playlist for a tape I made for my high school boyfriend featuring two albums I was pretty obsessed with the summer of 1991: Big Star's Third/Sister Lovers and Television's Marquee Moon.

I got turned on to Big Star, Television and numerous other indie rock classics at the used record store where I worked, starting my senior year of high school. My twenty-something dude coworkers loved to throw things I wasn't familiar with on the turntable, just to see my reaction. And that reaction was usually: holy shit, this is amazing!

So of course I snapped up those used LP copies of Television's Marquee Moon and Big Star's Third/Sister Lovers (1985 PVC Records pressing) we had for sale in the store. I believe they were priced at $5.99 each, which was the entry-level price threshold for "good" albums that weren’t common as dirt.

Naturally, I was driven to share my enthusiasm with my high school boyfriend. His musical scene was more everything goth and 4AD, with a little James Taylor (???) on the side. One day when we were hanging out he popped a This Mortal Coil CD into the CD player. It took me a minute, but I believe I blurted out: "Hey, this is a Big Star song!" It was indeed their cover of "Kangaroo," the lead track on This Mortal Coil's It'll End In Tears album. So I resolved to make him a tape of that entire Big Star album (plus two Alex Chilton solo songs) and that Television LP as a bonus.

"Marquee Moon" is a song by American punk rock band Television, recorded for their 1977 debut album of the same name and released on this day in 1977.

The group's debut album, Marquee Moon, is often considered one of the defining releases of the punk era