The Velvet Underground, Nico - The Velvet Underground & Nico

When the Velvets recorded this debut, they were best known as the protégés of Andy Warhol (who designed the sleeve), and as a grating, combustive live band. Fueled by drummer Moe Tucker's no-nonsense wham and John Cale's howling viola, some of the straight-up rock & roll and arty noise extravaganzas here bear that out. But before Lou Reed was singing about sadomasochism and drug deals and writing lyrics inspired by his favorite poets, he was a pop songwriter, and this album has some of his prettiest tunes, mostly sung by Nico, the German dark angel who left the band after this disc. Even the sordid rockers are underscored by graceful pop tricks, like the two-chord flutter at the center of the classic "Heroin." --Douglas Wolk Amazon.com essential recording

The Velvet Underground And Nico 1967

Very experimental album indeed. Realesed at the height of Psychedelia in 1967 this album never was really that popular because it was too "out there" but although that this album has reamained a classic. Some key tracks on here are, "run run run", "heroin", "venus in furs", "all tommorows parties", and more. Great album for anyone who craves for experimental psychedelic music, trust me if you like piper at the gates of dawn you'll like this album. September 14, 2008

OK. So Andy Warhol really didn't musically produce this!

The debut album from NYC's own Velvet Underground is a terrific and by some accounts, a landmark album. I probably wouldn't call it a landmark album, but nevertheless, it's still very good. The immediate emergence of Brooklyn's Lou Reed (my hometown) as a songwriter and arranger takes off from this album to his terrific solo work in the not to distant future from when this was made (check out Lou Reed's Transformer album). Noteable songs include, "Venus In Furs", "Heroin", and "European Son". Warhol was able to catapult them to near superstardom by designing the album cover and parading them in front of the media (some say it was for his own benefit). When in actuality, this debut had its own legs from the beginning as evident of Warhol bailing on the band after this album. If you enjoy '60's psychedelia as I do, pick this album up. September 13, 2008

VU's finest moment

This album narrowly edge Loaded as VU's finest album? Why? Nico. Her haunting vocal are so different from Reed's but they compliment each other so well. The songs are experimental enough that it's interesting but not too experimental that it's unlistenable.

1. "Sunday Morning" 5/5
2. "I'm Waiting for the Man" 4/5
3. "Femme Fatale" 5/5
4. "Venus in Furs" 3/5
5. "Run Run Run" 3/5
6. "All Tomorrow's Parties" 4/5
7. "Heroin" 5/5
8. "There She Goes Again" 5/5
9. "I'll Be Your Mirror" 4/5
10. "The Black Angel's Death Song" 2/5
11. "European Son" 3/5
July 30, 2008

Excellent music, horrible mastering

The cd contains the a remastered edition of the original album. I don't know what the engineers had in mind, but the remastered edition makes my ears bleed. The sound volume has been boosted to a way too high volume and results in completely distorted music. Some of the songs are totally unlistenable. Sure, the loudness of the original album is much less than most current releases, but this is no excuse to change that.
To conclude: the cd is no remastered edition, but a mismastered edition of this great album. July 30, 2008

I Have Made A Big Decision To Nullify My Life.

I can say in one sentence why I love this album, but that sentence needs about forty more sentences giving some fundamental cultural history background to clarify its deeper meaning. So please bear with me as I work my way up to my one sentence.
Everyone who knows anything about the cultural history of the USA knows that the roots of rock and roll music are mostly outgrowths of African-American rebellion and cultural expression. There is some intertwining of these African-American roots with purely European-American rural cultural roots that kept early rock and roll from being purely African-American music, but there is no doubt that the slavery-originating rebelliousness and cultural expression of African-Americans is the Ur-root that jazz and blues and then rock and roll mostly grew out of. And one of the things that distinguished this music from more "highbrow" American and European music was how oriented it was by PHYSICAL experience. Rock and roll is very physical music in the sense that part of its point is to get an emphatically physical response from the performer and the listener. It's not that classical music (or the watered-down forms of popular music that derive from it) induces no strong physical response in its devoted listeners, but this physical response is guided and controlled by what is considered the deeper "spiritual" qualities of that music. But because of the African-American experience there was a heavy emphasis on physical release, on a kind of physical inhibition and "freedom." It's not that the music has no non-tangible qualities, but rather that everything is focused into a very physical expression. This is not surprising when you consider the negative physical quality of existence in African-American history. And it is no accident that the European-American culture that could relate to African-American culture and partially blend with it was that of the rural and urban poor. There was a radical need here to "shake off," and find liberation from, a kind of deep physical alienation as well as mental and spiritual discomfort. This physical alienation clearly came from a negative quality of physical life. One can in a sense shut down one's mental and spiritual aspirations and still go on living on a more animal level, but when this oppression includes physical oppression then there is nothing left but rebellion or utter despair and death. And let me note that I am fully aware of the fact that native African music and all forms of primal folk music are already more physical than European classical music, but the physical nature of rock and roll has a peculiar rebellious and alienated quality that does not exist in native forms of music. And it is absolutely no accident or mere coincidence that a physical form of escape like the non-medicinal use of narcotics and other drugs (including alcohol) is so prevalent in the history of jazz, blues, and rock and roll music. There were many modern classical music artists in the 20th century, such as Bartok and Berg, who were highly intelligent and radically rebellious artists, but one finds no trace among these artists of the kind of need for physical escape that is revealed by the drug and alcohol use among jazz, blues, and rock and roll artists. I would add that the level of deafening sound volume that rock and roll eventually reached is also part of this pattern. And finally we have the fact that eventually even many kids from high-income backgrounds expressed a mental and spiritual alienation reduced down to a purely physical need that they tried to meet by participation in the rock and roll cultural revolution that had its original roots in the experiences of African-American slaves and European-American economic outcasts. These privileged rich white kids spiritually identified, whether it was realized or not, with humans who had come to be casually and familiarly known as poor niggers and white trash. My goodness, where did all this alienation with a physical face come from?

So all this finally brings us to Lou Reed and VU. We can focus here by asking the question of why we would and should still be interested in a once-obscure rock and roll album that is 40 years old and whose high point is a song about self-willed human nullification through heroin addiction. The answer to our question lies hidden in the fact that this cornerstone song has a strange self-consciousness about it. The character singing (is it Lou Reed or just a fiction?) makes it clear that he doesn't care what you think about him, about what he does, or about anything else. Yet notice how carefully crafted the song is. It goes so far as to even have drum beats that are startlingly off-beat to signify the racing of the heroin addict's heart trying to maintain itself in the rush. And then when everything is reduced down to pure physical sound expression of this nightmare reality, the electric viola is used to produce screeching feedback that is actually carefully and artistically controlled. This feedback is like the true and chosen voice of the addict who refuses to have a voice in his society. This is the voice of the maximal alienation that is a window on American history. But in the end it doesn't really nullify itself accept in the sense of refusing to be an ordinary conforming citizen. In the end it turns its tormented screeching into art and defies the oppressing powers in the only way it can. People who have a negative view of this album say that it is about nihilistic decadence and corruption and pretentious self-indulgence which they don't approve of, along with the fact that it is bad music; and many people who have a positive view of the album also say that this album is about those things which they also don't approve, but they still find the album cool and interesting because it's good rock and roll. But I say (here is my one sentence): I love this album because it expresses a low and inevitable point of American despair and alienation which it escapes by transforming it through rock and roll into a defiant Yes of art.
Whatever one may think of Lou Reed, in the end he is a genuine artist and genuine art is never really nihilistic though it may have to make its way through hell to show its true face. The fact that Lou Reed is an artist rather than a suicide or a raving killer ("thank your God that I just don't care") is a good sign for the USA though in its determined blindness it may not realize this fact. He made the decision to nullify his life (in reality? in fiction? it makes no difference) then made another decision to recreate himself as an artist. Somewhere in the dark of that subtle and profound decision lies the key to the USA's escape from its own eventual nullification. But one seriously wonders, however widely regarded this album has become over the decades, how deeply its real value and meaning will penetrate into the culture of the land of the free where rock and roll has become a paper tiger with a multi-million dollar bank account and a very low tolerance for reality. One wonders if there will be any kind of artistic vehicle of liberation for the unborn but coming suicides, killers, and whatever other forms the alienated take in the future.
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND & NICO is more than just a good old rock and roll album. It's a powerful lens through which one can see a great deal, if one wants to.
June 29, 2008

More reviews at Amazon.com ...