Tom Verlaine [Import]

Tom Verlaine | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 10, 2002)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Msi Music/Super D
• ASIN: B000024JAS
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #591,050 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars God bless Tom Verlaine, November 28, 2001

By 

Boxodreams "[e-mail]" (district of columbia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tom Verlaine (Audio CD)

I was surprised to see any reviews from fans at all for this. I didn't know how many people still love and maybe a little bit revere Tom Verlaine the way we used to. One reviewer said Verlaine is one of the top 5 electric guitar players of all time. I think that's a pretty hard field to handicap, but he certainly has one of the most distinctive and stirring styles I've ever heard. Majestic and biting, sort of what "Layla" might have sounded like if Clapton and Allman were jittery, downtown, dressed-in-black types. This album, "Tom Verlaine," is a great album, a Rosetta Stone of chamber rock. All those newcomers like Mercury Rev, Flaming Lips, are just so many sour, cloying offspring. This is the real stuff with teeth and muscle and heart and beat poetry and swagger and stately stuff all mixed in. I believe if asked, every person who has ever become a Tom Verlaine fan would say they get a jolt any time they play "Last Night," its emotional power undiminished by familiarity or the passage of time.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Verlaine's finest 40 minutes, March 20, 2002

By 

Philip P. Obbard "pobbard" (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tom Verlaine (Audio CD)

Tom Verlaine's debut is still his finest effort, and arguably superior to anything Television ever recorded. While sonically and musically it could easily be the follow-up to ADVENTURE (Fred Smith is even on board again), filled with anthemic choruses and tight, fluid solos, the slightly more personal (but still enjoyably obtuse) lyrical content is probably unique in Verlaine's canon. In particular, "Souvenir From a Dream", "Kingdom Come", and "Last Night" might be the three best songs, in a pure songwriting sense, in Verlaine's canon.

To correct another poster: "Kingdom Come" is *not* the same song Television used to play. It has no relation to that epic Television song of the same name. (But it *is* the same song David Bowie covered on SCARY MONSTERS in 1980). However, a number of other songs on this LP are Television leftovers: "Breakin' My Heart" dates from 1975, "Grip Of Love" from 1976, "Last Night" from the ADVENTURE sessions, and the lyrics of "Red Leaves" are taken from both "Adventure" and the original "Kingdom Come".

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars very good but not great, December 1, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Tom Verlaine (Audio CD)

The greatest shame about Tom Verlaine is so few of his albums are available to buy. His first one is a good one. It lacks the intensity and drive of Dreamtime (his best), but it is still a terrific album. Not unlike Lou Reed's debut record (also self-titled), this is a pretty straight ahead rock 'n' roll recording. Also like Lou, Tom would go on to make better albums, but this is still a terrific pop record.