Send "Television Personalities " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 Dan Treacy has been claiming that Television Personalities are over and done with, and that he's quitting music. Maybe he'll be back and maybe he won't: His band's first kiss-off was They Could Have Been Bigger Than the Beatles, back in 1982, and they recorded one of the greatest goodbye-to-all-that albums ever, Closer to God, a decade after that. MGMT's "Song for Dan Treacy" was a conceptual variation on Treacy's own "I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives", an encomium to a hero who's still alive but lost. Somehow, though, the TVPs keep turning up to get the final word in.Treacy's persona has always been a sort of tormented dandy-- a frail, high-aesthetic gentleman who's been screwed by coming from the wrong end of the British class system, filtering his fury through Pop Art and pop songs-- and he's never been shy about showing his scars. But after all the drugs and the professional struggles and the jail time, he seems somewhat impaired as a songwriter and performer. He's definitely not gone, like latter-day Brian Wilson or Syd Barrett, and a good deal of his old sharp-toothed wit is intact, but not all of it. He sounds not just scarred but damaged. So A Memory Is Better Than Nothing is an album about hurting so badly that it's no longer possible to express the pain clearly, which makes it tough to listen to but also tough to dismiss....full text |
| Slantmagazine |
| There are a lot of potential outcomes to releasing an influential album. Television Personalities, in the near 30 years since their minor-masterpiece debut, And Don't the Kids Just Love It, has garnered more attention for that album's precision than the string of mid-range successes that have followed. The band, a shifting cast of musicians behind singer Dan Treacy, has survived largely on their debut's legacy, predisposing an entire generation of British kids toward fey, self-deprecating pop while producing a slew of largely unnoticed follow-ups. While most of that output has been somewhat redundant (save for 1985's surprising, far-edgier The Painted Word), the band has generally been too strong to totally write off. And A Memory Is Better Than Nothing, the band's 12th album, continues in this mold, starting off with a strong crop of snappy songs before slowly petering out. It's indicative of how simply perfect the band's formula was, and how quickly they nailed it on a first try, that their debut has so fully eclipsed the rest of their oeuvre. This legacy, along with a stubborn adherence to that formula, has made them a veritable copy of themselves, meaning that an album like this one, while frequently efficient and not as frequently very good, is doomed by comparison. Even the highs of songs like the springy, slurring "Walk Toward the Light" feel like mockups of previously explored territory. The repetitive mining of this style has assured a kind of retired status, with attention of late coming mostly in the way of appreciation (e.g. a tribute song on MGMT's latest album) or bizarre controversy, like a kerfuffle in 2006 over whether Treacy was the secret lyrical force behind Arctic Monkeys. Comparisons to the Monkeys, another band whose tightly spotless debut has made them obsolete, may be further evidence of the thinness of this sound, but the influential range it's had has been amazing, from the C86 generation to the stables of Creation and Sarah records, all the way down to Belle & Sebastian. It's a testament to the band that they have maintained their own sound while being so relentlessly copied. A lot of this is due to Treacy's distinct vocal presence, a throaty lisp that rises to soaring excitement on some occasions, dropping into a mumbly burble on others. That voice sounds slightly more ragged here, but rises to the occasion on songs like the title track and "She's My Yoko," overcoming the built-in twee sensibility with open-hearted, if sometimes incomprehensible, lyrics. The mushy populism of "The Girl in Hand Me Down Clothes" indicates trouble ahead, which arrives fully via the xylophone-driven "The Good Anarchist," the off-key storybook quality of which is the centerpiece of a weak back-end that slows down the tempo and drives up the schmaltz. As a whole, A Memory Is Better Than Nothing is at times effective while feeling persistently inconsequential, furthering the band's legacy while doing almost nothing to improve on it....full text |
| Pennyblackmusic |
| Being a Television Personalities fan requires some commitment. You have to be prepared for some heartache and disappointment. Throughout the band’s 30-year career, singer/songwriter Dan Treacy has, consciously or subconsciously, sabotaged his career, and the current incarnation of the Television Personalities has had so much bad luck recently that you long for a break for the band. Alhough the band’s situation and their gigs are often painful experiences (though when the band is good, they’re very, very good), the Television Personalities' magic is still very much alive on record. The songs on 'A Memory is Better Than Nothing' are staggeringly good – Treacy’s gift for writing brilliant songs has never diminished despite all the hardship he’s faced over the years, and like Daniel Johnston’s recent album ‘Is and Always Was’, the production perfectly compliments Treacy’s shambolic delivery. Opening with the title track, an upbeat, jangly pop number that sets an optimistic tone for the album, ‘A Memory…’ brings Treacy’s songwriting front and centre, utilising keyboard arrangements, electronics and conventional instruments to emphasise each song’s emotional core....full text |
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