Television Personalities - ...And Don't The Kids Just Love It (Album Review)

 

Television Personalities - …And Don’t The Kids Just Love It

(1981)


My copy: 2016 reissue on red vinyl by Fire Records.


Television Personalities is primarily the work of singer/songwriter Daniel Treacy. …And Don’t The Kids Just Love It was the group’s first full-length, which saw music that wavered somewhere between punk and pop-rock. The unchanging element of Dan Treacy’s songs are their ineffable sense of humor. 

Lo-fi production brings charm to “This Angry Silence” where Treacy’s heartfelt lyrics become the focus. Despite the lower production quality, the instrumentals are not to be taken lightly with the rhythm section in particular being quite punctual and snappy. “The Glittering Prizes” is a combination of 60s pop and late 70s punk that spirals into a smooth ¾ time with glittering guitar lines. Intimacy takes over on “The World Of Pauline Lewis” before the romantic prom waltz of “A Family Affair.” 

“Silly Girl” is a faster punk oriented song in which the bass and guitar take turns playing arpeggios. The bright guitar of “Diary Of A Young Man” shifts and crackles around the contemplative lyrics with a catchy riff that keeps things flowing in an otherwise atmospheric track. Happy brit-pop charm spills from the cheerful progressions on “Geoffry Ingram” yet there is a lovably pathetic style that gives a deeper sense of personality to these ditties. 

“I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives” is a humorous jab at folk and a somewhat sad tale about the reclusive Pink Floyd founder. “Jackanory Stories'' fuses childhood nursery rhymes with punk-rock before trading edge for the bouncy pop of “Parties In Chelsea.” 

“La Grande Illusion” may be the best track for its dense and well-layered post-punk atmospheres, with echoing textural guitars and punchy bass interplay: it makes all the more sense that T.V. Personalities shared a member with Swell Maps at one point. “A Portrait Of Dorian Gray” waxes philosophical before the melancholy instrumental mood piece of “The Crying Room.” The album ends on perhaps the most straight punk song, which trades total aggression for more of a lamented bitterness. 

The Television Personalities were one of the early bands to blend the vigor of UK punk with a sincere yet cheeky bit of pop, which would influence a wide array of bands for decades to come. It’s curious to imagine what this album would have sounded like with tighter production or a scope as wide as that of the Swell Maps records.

This album is still accessible physically. 


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