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Re: (TV) TV in England



Michael

There are probably various reasons why MM was more successful over here than in the States but a lot of it is about size of the country etc. The UK is tiny compared to the US. It is therefore much easier for something to get around by word of mouth. In 1977 we had 3 national music weeklies--NME, Melody Maker and Sounds. NME had a really big circulation in those days. All 3 of these publications waxed lyrical about MM--I think everyone has seen the famous Nick Kent NME review.This particular review was published, from memory, something like a month before the UK release of MM. At the same time as this John Peel had started playing tracks on national radio. In those days, anyone that wanted to hear anything a little bit different on the radio only had Peely to listen to, such was the restrictions in radio stations and programming. This meant that a certain amount of momentum was able to build up. I think quite a lot of enlightened music fans had already picked up on Patti Smith and the Ramones and realised something was happening with regards to New York. Another thing was that people who slagged off punk because of the 'poor' musicianship were able to get into MM because there was great playing on it. So they could be cool whilst still listening to great musicians. Television then played a tour over here with Blondie which even got some attention in the mainstream press from what I can remember.I do remember persuading my local record store owner at the time to buy a batch of copies of MM which he had not heard of. He ordered a dozen and they sold in no time.

So when it comes down to it I just think it's much easier to get the message around in the UK because of it's size.........and we are obviously more open minded and have better taste!!

Seriously though I think a good example of how different it is in the States is ZZ Top. Whenever I used to see their name mentioned back in the 70s it always used to say how they were absolutely massive in Texas but virtually unknown in the rest of the country(I know that changed later). That would be impossible in the UK.

Does that make sense?

From: "Michael Olcsvary" <olcsvary@icehouse.net>
Reply-To: tv@obbard.com
To: "TV" <tv@obbard.com>
Subject: (TV) TV in England
Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 14:34:54 -0700

As I'm sure everyone on this list knows, Marquee Moon barely made a dent in
the US charts when it was released, yet was top ten in England.  And I've
been wondering, why for?  I've got my suspicions as to the reasons why -
like a lot of press and radio play (especially the latter; there just
weren't - and possibly aren't now - the morass of radio stations in England
that exist in the states), along with their "founding fathers of the
Movement" status, but I was wondering if our friends across the Atlantic had
any insight.
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