"A warning: the sleeve to Marquee Moon lists not only songwriting and instrumental credits, it lists guitar solo credits. Blues riffing duels with stately arpeggios, Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd bend notes beyond recognition, and songs stretch well beyond the five-minute mark.

But Marquee Moon is not music for guitar shop clerks. Punk rockers, maybe. Poets, probably. People who appreciate melody piled on melody, and songs crammed full of an album's worth of ideas - definitely. Verlaine and Television were originals in 1977, and Marquee Moon still sounds special today. You can hear them defining punk and new wave: "I get your point/You're so sharp" from "See No Evil" pretty much invented the new wave lyric, and the occasional afterbeat guitars and and high hat shuffles show them experimenting with reggae before The Clash brought it to the punk masses. Meanwhile, the guitars spiral into a different atmosphere altogether.

Verlaine and Lloyd push at the edges of "Friction," "Marquee Moon" and "Guiding Light," stuffing them full of melodic invention but never cutting the tethers that keep them grounded in simple, classic rock 'n' roll. Excited but focused, this may be the best guitar playing ever put to a rock record, and it makes a special set of songs into a magical, must-have album."

"No pop/rock collection is complete without this album. I have been trying to track it down for years and finally... Why is it a classic? Well after the likes of Velvet Underground, along came a new breed of guitar pop. It ended up somewhere between garage rock and post-punk but with Tom Verlaines lyrics this album ends up flawless. There really isn't a bad song on here and everything is catchy. Recently quoted #2 in Steve Albini's list of essential albums. If you can find it, buy it! "