Classic Albums #14 - The Velvet Underground & Nico

[vastar iner]

Well, I did urge everyone to buy it when it was the 99p Google Play album...

We've only had a couple from the sixties, so time for another one.  We've just had rock, so let's try something slightly different.  We've only had a couple with female vocalists, so this one has a strong female element.

On wikipedia there is a list of albums considered the best ever.  It averages out listings from 14 different critical selections.  Some have already cropped up in this series.  However only 5 albums crop up in all 14 of the selections.  Three of the top five are by The Beatles, a fourth is by Nirvana, and the fifth is this one. 

It's like the Sesame Street "one of these things is not like the other" song.  The list is rammed full of multi-platinum albums - and then there's TVU&N, which has never made the top 40 anywhere.

So what's so special about it?

Let's give it a go...



Side one
1. "Sunday Morning" 2:54
2. "I'm Waiting for the Man" 4:39
3. "Femme Fatale" 2:38
4. "Venus in Furs" 5:12
5. "Run Run Run" 4:22
6. "All Tomorrow's Parties" 6:00

Side two
7. "Heroin" 7:12
8. "There She Goes Again" 2:41
9. "I'll Be Your Mirror" 2:14
10. "The Black Angel's Death Song" 3:11
11. "European Son" 7:46

[Deleted]

I own this, along with 2 of their other albums. "Loaded" which was originally released in 1970, and I also own a compilation which contains three of the above songs plus probably their most famous single "White light white heat"

The album was quite daring for its time with songs about prostitution and heroin amongst other things.....and I love it, it makes for a great listen when I'm jogging.

[Shireblogger]

Velvet Underground & Nico

Context
Beware of spending money on albums simply because your favourite musicians rate them highly. I have a Small Faces double album with just 3 decent tracks on it, and can only take about 30 seconds of Robert Johnson in one go. And the prize for most shockingly over-rated album of all-time goes to Lou Reed’s “Transformer”. But when Google Play, and hence Amazon, put the Velvet Underground & Nico on sale, I reckoned I only had 99p and 45 minutes to lose, so I took the punt.
2/10

General Overview
I was surprised how many tracks were familiar. I already owned cover versions by OMD, Duran Duran, REM, Bauhaus, Icehouse and the Primitives, which helped. On first listening, this album was much, much better than I’d expected, and it has since grown on me. But it isn’t as devastatingly original as I’d anticipated.
6/10

Intro & Outro
“Sunday Morning” could have been written by Tommy Boyce or Neil Diamond for performance by the Monkees. It’s a rather pleasant song, performed well, and could have been a big hit if recorded by a well-known group. Sadly, “European Son”, at the other end, is terribly pointless noise.
5/10

Music
There’s plenty of variety on this album – more than I’d expected from its very po-faced reputation. The trio of cuts that Nico leads would be delightful in a stripped down torch-song chanteuse style. The host of cover versions I know emphasise the adaptability of the tunes. But, I’m still struggling to see how this album “changed the face of rock music”. They’d clearly been listening to the Kinks (“I’m Waiting For The Man”), the Hollies (“There She Goes Again”) and Gene Vincent (“Run Run Run”).
7/10

Lyrics
Lou Reed’s lyrics are superb. Occasionally dreamily evocative – “Early dawning, Sunday morning, it’s just the wasted years so close behind.” More often, they are dramatic as with the sex and drug songs. “Heroin” has to be the most starkly described chemical experience ever committed to vinyl. “I’m Waiting For The Man” is a tremendous vignette. “There She Goes Again” joins “Walk On The Wild Side” as the best song ever written about prostitution. “Venus In Furs” goes too far for my taste, conjuring images I’d rather not see. I can see how the lyrics were a shock back in 1967, and perhaps they are the reason why this album is so revered.
9/10

Production & Sound
John Cale’s electric viola is really interesting. Sometimes it works well, but there are times when its dischordant insistence gets too much for me, especially on “Venus In Furs”. The amplification and production on “Run Run Run” enhances the song, whilst the jangly flower power vibe on “All Tomorrow’s Parties” is amongst the best of the genre. “Heroin” is also a great piece of production, with it fast-slow-fast-slow pacing, and punch, punky sound, complemented by the squealing guitar sounding like fingernails on a blackboard.
8/10

High Points
As the preceding comments might indicate, I think “Heroin” is a breathtaking composition for many reasons. “Sunday Morning” is my favourite track, whilst “Run Run Run”, “Femme Fatale” and “There She Goes Again” rate well.
8/10

Low Points
The last two tracks, “Black Angel’s Death Song” and “European Son” are truly dreadful, and have no place on this album. Also, the final 2 minutes of “I’m Waiting For The Man” and “All Tomorrow’s Parties” are unnecessary as the band have run out of ideas, and therefore simply waste the listener’s time. Brevity would have improved the album.
0/10

Packaging
Andy Warhol is a crashingly over-rated individual. But the cover of this album, with or without the peelable sticker, is a work of genius, up there with “Dark Side Of The Moon”. I’m knocking off 1 point for Warhol’s signature being almost as prominent as the band name on the cover. I’m not a fan of undeserved egos.
9/10

On balance
Having only discovered this album 47 years after its release, it was a very pleasant surprise. Far more variety and far easier to listen to than I had expected. I’m still not sure why Rolling Stone magazine rated it the 13th greatest album of all-time, but perhaps they, like many other music critics, were just trying too hard to be cool. Whilst the lyrics must have been ground-breaking, and some of the sounds may have been original, there is also a lot that is derivative and it would have benefited from an editor. And, most of all, it doesn’t actually hang together brilliantly as an album, sounding more like a singles collection from a career spread over 20 years.
7/10

TOTAL SCORE
She’s going to smile, to make you frown.
61/100.

For Haven:
6/10

[vastar iner]

Imagine being a hot young hipster in early 1967. You're au fait with the big names; the Stones, Beatles, Beach Boys. You're also au fait with the underground scene; Sonics, Monks.

Then your glance falls upon a plain white album with a yellow banana on it. Peel slowly and see. And Andy Warhol's signature. Wow, Andy Warhol has made an album? Not quite - a glance at the back shows it's a different act - but you are familiar with the reputation of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable and pop art. So you buy it.

Yet when you put it on, what do you hear? "Sunday Morning". A gentle awakening from a dreamful slumber. Everything's OK. Everything's better than OK. It's wonderful, in fact. This is a beautiful, tender, touching song. It's perfect. Mmm. Relax.

Perhaps this is going to be rather conventional.

Nope.

The next track, which was never polished up, is dirty, staccato, urgent, insistent. And what's this? Prostitution? Drugs? Hang on, this is not something one would expect. Pet Sounds was all nostalgic discontent, Aftermath bluesy and loud, Revolver was singalong stories. This is far more gritty. And far more street. But specifically a New York street, in the bad end of town. All sorts is going on. Before it ends in carefully ordered chaos. This has not been in a pop song before.

And that sets the tone for the first half of the album. Catullus did it in ancient Rome. He would interpose his sweeter, lighter poems in between some of the most scabrous and vitriolic abuse. Because TVU&N then goes into another rather sweet pop song. The grit in the oyster is Nico's voice. Not exactly brilliant, but with the German accent she sounds like a Bond dominatrix trying to go seductive. It's jarring yet it works. And then that's followed by one of the great artistic achievements of the sixties. A sadomasochistic drone with all guitar strings tied to one note and John Cale's wailing string counterpointing. Discordant and painful, all the more disturbing for being a conventional verse-chorus structure. Sweet-bitter-sweet-bitter.

Before we go back to a normal pop song, although is it again a dirty bluesy Stonesy number, rattling along at a pace, fittingly given the title. And back to the drone with "All Tomorrow's Parties". What on earth is going on here? The piano sounds like it's being played with nails rather than hammers, Nico sounds like she is ordering everyone around, the allure of the iceblonde. Reed's guitar is ignoring everything that is going on around it other than Nico, and the whole thing sounds like one is falling down a tunnel to a distant doom. Quite, quite remarkable that it still works. Even the lengthy coda works. Grinding.

And now what? "Heroin"? Hitherto all drug references in music have been veiled. This is absolutely blatant. Rallentando and crescendo. And all as lo-fi as one can get. The way it gets across the ecstasis of drugs - yet still makes taking them sound as alluring and captivating as Roseanne Barr in a little white lace number - is quite the paradox to pull off. I think it's Mo Tucker's drumsound; it is the constant angel on the shoulder saying this is going to be the death of you, or the devil urging you down the path. This is a lovely little pop song, only with three discordant elements; those drums, the lyrics, and the final two minute of Cale again destroying everything that has gone before. It is a drama in a song.

Then we go back to the simple pop song. Only this one is about prostitution. Again the uncompromising lyric subject. There's no glamourization, innocentivation, it's there right in front of you. Deal with it, popbitches. Before back to the simple, uncomplicated pop.

And then the finish. Neither of which are really songs. This is where we go back to the Exploding Plastic Inevitable. This is the art behind the pop art. Musique concrete. What can one do with sound? How discordant can we make everything? Why is it discordant? Can it still be music?

OK. Out of tens. As far as an art statement goes, it's a slam dunk 10 out of 10. If one treats it solely as music, the last couple of tracks drag it down from 10 to 8. Because they are hard listening and require an appropriate state of mind. And do not rely on an appreciation of them as music as opposed to the capabilities of sound. In 1967 it would have made far more of an impact, but we have had a lot more experimentation since. Let's put it this way. If VU influenced everyone who bought the album, which, given the stats, is likely, the last couple of tracks influenced Sir Harrison Birtwistle.

No denying though. It is one of the most important albums ever released. And even now the majority of it sounds astonishing.

[o]

Enjoyed what I've heard so far, will finish it off this weekend hopefully, who was up for September, was it myself?

[raliverpool]

New York's The Velvet's debut LP released on the seminal Jazz label Verve for goodness sake, was not so much a pop statement when it was released (two months after Los Angeles' The Doors self titled debut, a month after San Francisco's Jefferson Airplane - Surrealistic Pillow album, two months before Frank Zappa & The Mother Of Invention Absolutely Free ..... and three months before England's suburbia The Beatles' Sgt. Peppers ..), even though Pop Artist Andy Warhol "superstar, hang him on my wall, o-hall-o .." was heavily involved in financing the recording, and obviously his Peel slowly and see Banana cover; but more an act of revolution, one that was badly produced out of a derelict 4 track studio over two days (a day less than The Beatles' debut album 1963 Please Please Me took to record) at the cost of $1,500 nearly one year earlier.

With this musical statement, rock flung itself under the wheels of avant garde. It was a glorious meshing together of guitar feedback, electric lo-fi pop balladry and artistic composition, which was further enhanced by the seductive, siren Germanic voice (which makes up one third of Lana Del Rey's reductive act with Nancy Sinatra and Judee Sill) of chanteuse Nico. While male vocalist (he could never be described as a singer) and tunesmith Lou Reed, competent guitarist Sterling Morrison, the rudimentary drumming of Maureen Tucker (who on this recording makes Meg White seem like John Bonham); and experimental rock (proto Brian Eno) sound-smith John Cale supplied the perfect, and at times unnerving musical back drop, Nico's icy, detached, Marlene Dietrich-on-smack vocals sent a thrill down the listeners spine. Songs like "I'll Be Your Mirror" and "All Tomorrow's Parties" are haunting, exquisite, and lush, while "Venus In Furs" and "Femme Fatale" celebrate the band's sleazy, darker side within 1960s New York's underground society.

At the time a lot of people were uneasy about the Velvets' obsession with SM imagery, and tracks seemingly celebrating hard-drugs hedonism ("Heroin", & "Waiting For My Man") where the band attempted to push feelings of amphetamine-induced rush and withdrawal into their output, with devastating results. Then there are the final two tracks on the album with would surely fail under the trade description act to be called songs, but are in reality white noise sound collages. Yet from garage rock onwards through Bowie, Roxy Music, Punk Rock, Kraut Rock, New Wave, REM & The Smiths, the proto-Grunge of Jesus & Mary Chain, Hüsker Dü, Sonic Youth and beyond this album is now more influential than "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" even if discount all the music snob hipsters.

Hence we come to this album (#. "Track" length - Rating out of 10):

Side one
1. "Sunday Morning" 2:54 - 8.5 The intro sounds like a children lullaby .... being sung by a disciple of Jimmy Savile. The song was written with Nico's voice in mind by Lou Reed and John Cale on a Sunday morning. The band previously performed it live with Nico singing lead, but when it came time to record it, Lou Reed sang the lead vocal. Nico would instead sing backing vocals on the song. The song's prominent use of celesta was the idea of John Cale.
2. "I'm Waiting for the Man" 4:39 - 9.5 Lou's abrasive song is sung from the point of view of the purchaser who is presumably traveling to Harlem from another part of the city; the "man" in the song's title is a drug dealer. For me the best part is the last minute instrumental "weird out".
3. "Femme Fatale" 2:38 - 9.5 - At producer Andy Warhol's request, band frontman Reed wrote the song about Warhol superstar Edie Sedgwick for Nico to sing. In the early 1970s after they had split Nico, Reed, & Cale performed together on a French TV show: www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjjDmX9Tkss <Guaranteed, to be better musically than anything you will view on this series of fiX-Factor.
4. "Venus in Furs" 5:12 - 10.0 As a reviewer to celebrate its 20th anniversary wrote "There is no intro or buildup to the song; the track starts as if you opened a door to a decadent Marrakesh S&M/opium den, a blast of air-conditioned Middle Eastern menace with a plodding beat that’s the missing link between "Bolero" and Led Zeppelin’s version of "When the Levee Breaks".
5. "Run Run Run" 4:22 - 6.0 Lou's song makes use of drug terms paired with religious imagery. Musically it sounds like the Strokes nearly 35 years before they existed.
6. "All Tomorrow's Parties" 6:00 - 8.0 Written by Lou about his observations of people and events at Warhol's clique at The Factory for Nico to sing.

Side two
7. "Heroin" 7:12 - 9.5 It begins slowly with Reed's quiet, melodic guitar and hypnotic drum patterns by Maureen Tucker, soon joined by John Cale's droning electric viola and Sterling Morrison's steady rhythm guitar. The tempo increases gradually, mimicking the high the narrator receives from the drug, until a frantic crescendo is reached, punctuated by Cale's shrieking viola and the more punctuated guitar strumming of Reed and Morrison. Tucker's drumming becomes hurried and louder. The song then slows to the original tempo, and repeats the same pattern before ending. If songs are any indication it sure beats The Grange Hill Cast - Just Say No. Maybe Zammo was a music fan?
8. "There She Goes Again" 2:41 - 7.0 A straightforward near conventional rock rewrite of Marvin Gaye's Hitch Hike, with Reed doing a Dylan vocal impersonation.
9. "I'll Be Your Mirror" 2:14 - 7.5 I've always found this track being rather slight, as if it is missing a bridge or proper chorus. Maybe that's the point.
10. "The Black Angel's Death Song" 3:11 - 5.0 Dominated by the piercing sound of John Cale's electric viola, creating dissonance throughout the song with bursts of white noise feedback throughout. This was Cale's chance to shine on what could barely be described as a tune.
11. "European Son" 7:46 - 4.5 So you thought the previous track was impenetrable. Well this is the hardcore. This track can be seen as a precursor to the band's next album White Light/White Heat and certainly its "Sister Ray", a seventeen-minute-long rock improvisation.


Overall 8 (85 / 11 = 72.73% (76%-81%) category).

But as I said before that is just an average of the tracks rated, when it reality it is far more significant than that. It's something of a cliché to recycle Brian Eno's famous 1982 quote that "the first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band'. Hence as a recommendation I surely have to go for their two decades on equivalent whom David Bowie made the same observation comparison of in 1993:

My recommendation for a similar album just has to be Pixies - Surfer Rosa (1988) www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIGHiMCLrqg&list=PLU7hdgc62-NNWZ-qbF0PWTZJU_zNGNyrf


The Velvet Underground Studio album rates:

The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967) 8
White Light/White Heat (1968) 6
The Velvet Underground (1969) 8
Loaded (1970) 7
VU (archival) (1985) 7
Another View (archival) (1986) 5

[o]

Side one
1. "Sunday Morning" 2:54 - Spooky, draws you in. 7/10
2. "I'm Waiting for the Man" 4:39 alright, drags a bit. 5/10
3. "Femme Fatale" 2:38 nice, sounds like it should be a motown song. 7/10
4. "Venus in Furs" 5:12 A song I've heard a lot about, not sure it lives up to the hype, but in the context of the album, it is good. 7/10
5. "Run Run Run" 4:22 Love the distorted guitar. 7/10
6. "All Tomorrow's Parties" 6:00 Bit dull, need drugs to appreciate it. 4/10

Side two
7. "Heroin" 7:12 Alright, bit overlong, but more upbeat despite the subject, it was 5/10, but degenerates into noise, so 4/10
8. "There She Goes Again" 2:41 More upbeat and poppy. 6/10
9. "I'll Be Your Mirror" 2:14 Hummm, okay. 5/10
10. "The Black Angel's Death Song" 3:11 Noise, and not in a good way. 1/10
11. "European Son" 7:46 Oh dear! 1/10
= 54/110 5/10, probably a 6 or a 7 without the last two songs.

[smokeyb]

Sorry for posting my review almost a year late, but better late than never.

14. Velvet Underground & Nico – Velvet Underground & Nico

I only own Transformer and nothing by the Velvet Underground so let’s see what it sounds like:
Side one
1. "Sunday Morning" 2:54 Quite a pleasant happy sing along song 8/10
2. "I'm Waiting for the Man" 4:39 Unmistakeable Reed song, Sounds great 9/10
3. "Femme Fatale" 2:38 Another good track 7/10
4. "Venus in Furs" 5:12 Unusual song with eastern sound instruments 6/10
5. "Run Run Run" 4:22 Okay track 5/10
6. "All Tomorrow's Parties" 6:00 A bit of a drag this one 3/10

Side two
7. "Heroin" 7:12 Controversial subject to sing about, but the first half sounds good, same cannot be said about the ending 6/10
8. "There She Goes Again" 2:41 Quite a catchy track 7/10
9. "I'll Be Your Mirror" 2:14 Average song 5/10
10. "The Black Angel's Death Song" 3:11 A bit of a dirge if I’m being honest 2/10
11. "European Son" 7:46 Not keen on this 1/10

Overall score 55/110

Haven score 5/10