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65: TELEVISION
Prove It/Venus
(Elektra, 1977)

BACK in the day, when 12-inch vinyl singles first started appearing, they weren't an excuse to fill the world with heinous and pointless remixes, but were actually a means of treating a track to the luxury of more room between the grooves, thereby bringing it to loud and glorious life.

The ubiquity of coloured vinyl in 1977 also meant that, if you were lucky and not too bothered about notions of taste and subtlety, you could possess a favourite track in a combination of the two formats, proudly walking back from the record shop with a single that looked like a giant Smartie.

Such was the case when Elektra released Prove It/Venus, two tracks from Television's epochal debut album Marquee Moon, as a 12-inch single in lurid green vinyl. I was so stupidly snobby and proprietorial about Marquee Moon that I actually remember feeling worried that all of this gimmickry would hoist the single into the charts under false pretences, but I needn't have worried.

If I remember rightly, I think it stalled around the number 35 mark - I'm sure someone can tell me - and as a consequence, we never got to see Television frowning their way through what would no doubt have been a grudging and lacklustre mime on Top Of The Pops.

Pity, really. I think they should have reversed the sides, myself. Prove It is comparatively lightweight by Television standards, cruising for the most part on a standard doo-wop chord sequence although it does erupt into a characteristic starburst of a solo section.

Venus is the real gem though, inexplicably relegated to B-side status here when it is, in fact, the very definition of perfection. Seriously, every single time I hear the word "perfect" my mind, unbidden, automatically plays Venus's opening bars.

The way everything works together here makes the precision of a Swiss watch seem like the work of cowboy builders after a three-day bender. It could instil a sense of wonder into the most jaded of palates, and make Richard Dawkins believe in God.

9:16am Friday 18th April 2008

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