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- Date Released: January 1, 1980
- Genre: Alternative/Punk
- Label: Fire Records / The Orchard
A wry, nostalgic and quintessentially English form of post-punk.
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We Say...
At more than one remove from the main thrust of Rough Trade's guitar-wielding contingent were Dan Treacy's makeshift combo, peddling their wry, nostalgic and quintessentially English form of post-punk. There is a fey, almost music hall feel to "Part-Time Punks," the lead track on the band's second release, which included a rather prescient reference ("Then they go to Rough Trade/ To buy Siouxsie and The Banshees") to the label that would be their home between 1979 and 1982. By 1981, The TVPs had honed their imperfect pop — and written enough songs — to record an album, ...And Don't the Kids Just Love It, best known for the infamous "I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives" ("'E was very famous/ Once upon a time..."). Despite his increasingly troubled personal life, Treacy's managed to keep the TVPs going down the decades, though it's the patronage of various Creation label bands and associates that's really helped grow the legend.
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They Say...
The first full album by Television Personalities, recorded after a four-year series of often brilliant D.I.Y. singles recorded under a variety of names, including the O-Level and the Teenage Filmstars, is probably the purest expression of Daniel Treacy's sweet-and-sour worldview. The songs, performed by Treacy, Ed Ball, and Mark Sheppard, predict both the C-86 aesthetic of simple songs played with a minimum of elaboration but a maximum of enthusiasm and earnestness and the later lo-fi aesthetic. The echoey, hissy production makes the songs sound as if the band were playing at the bottom of an empty swimming pool, recorded by a single microphone located two houses away, yet somehow that adds to the homemade charm of the record. Treacy's vocals are tremulous and shy, and his lyrics run from the playful "Jackanory Stories" to several rather dark songs that foreshadow the depressive cast of many of his later albums. "Diary of a Young Man," which consists of several spoken diary entries over a haunting, moody twang-guitar melody, is downright scary in its aura of helplessness and inertia. The mood is lightened a bit by some of the peppier songs, like the smashing "World of Pauline Lewis" and the "David Watts" rewrite "Geoffrey Ingram," and the re-recorded version of the earlier single "I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives," complete with deliberately intrusive prerecorded bird sounds, is one of the most charming things Television Personalities ever did. This album must have sounded hopelessly amateurish and cheaply ramshackle at the time of its 1981 release, but in retrospect, it's clearly a remarkably influential album that holds up extremely well.
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| 01. |  |
This Angry Silence |
2:39 |
|
| 02. | |
The Glittering Prizes |
3:01 |
|
| 03. | |
World Of Pauline Lewis |
2:38 |
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| 04. | |
A Family Affair |
2:36 |
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| 05. | |
Silly Girl |
2:49 |
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| 06. | |
Diary Of A Young Man |
3:59 |
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| 07. | |
Geoffrey Ingram |
2:15 |
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| 08. | |
I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives |
2:33 |
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| 09. | |
Jackanory Stories |
3:04 |
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| 10. | |
Parties In Chelsea |
1:41 |
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| 11. | |
La Grande Illusion |
3:33 |
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| 12. | |
A Picture Of Dorian Gray |
2:13 |
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| 13. | |
The Crying Room |
1:59 |
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| 14. | |
Look Back In Anger |
2:40 |
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14 Total Tracks, 37:40 Total Length
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Credits
- Television Personalities - Main Performer // Edward Ball - ? // Mark Sheppard - ? // Dan Treacy - ? // Phil Vinall - Mastering // Barry Woodward - Mastering
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