Chelsea Girl

Started off great, but then the medieval crap kicked in and made me upset. Why do they always have medieval stuff?

I am definitely reading too much into this album and can't seem to articulate it. There is a subversive pop element to this thing that is played completely straight. And I think that is what Andy warhol saw in her. The album is completely unhinged in the most normal way possible. Besides the fact that clearly everyone who had any involvement with it was so blitzed on drugs. Perfectly deranged.

These days is a great tune. 45 minutes of it seemed like a lifetime, her voice got extremely irritating.

Nico had the slightest, most delicate and fragile of talents and her finest moments were I'll be Your Mirror, Femme Fatale and All Tomorrow's Parties on the Velvet Underground's debut.

But this largely ignored and forgotten work, her first solo album, comes close to those three icy masterpieces.

Her singing voice is, at best, strangely withdrawn and more or less tuneful. Still, as the song goes, "It doesn't matter if you sing out of tune/So long as you're German"

The orchestration on the songs - acoustic guitar, strings, occasionally an organ or a flute - just add to the Gothic decadence of it all.

With John Cale & Lou Reed there are moments of real beauty and, let's face it, outright weirdness.

You get the impression that she might not quite understand all of the lyrics she's singing, although Cale's and Reed's lyrics are not exactly transparent.

There's only one genuine stinker here though: Eulogy for Lenny Bruce. Morbid and dull, I'm afraid. And Tim Hardin, who wrote it, is not John Cale.

But that dull track aside, this is endlessly fascinating and more than a little bizarre. Like that's a bad thing!

Some lovely songs on this especially the opening couple but dwindled a bit in interest as it went on
3.5

There are times when I really wish I had the book, so I could understand why certain albums have been selected for this project. But, generally those times come when I am listening to an album that makes me so angry that I am determined to never give this author a single penny. This is one of those times.

An especially pleasant listen. From the strong songwriting to the uniqueness of her German accent to the simplicity of the guitar with their accompanying violin melodies on top of them, this really finds a way to please the ears.

Tråkigt emellanåt, men har absolut inga problem med Nicos sångröst.

Empieza muy bien pero se me ha desinflado al final. Está curioso.

I started off thinking the music wasn’t bad I just didn’t like her voice. Then midway through were a couple of tracks where I didn’t like the music or her voice. Then by the second half I was just bored. Was she on downers while making this?

I see a lot of funny one star reviews. Is having perfect pitch really all it takes for them to like a record? I enjoy when artists are really reaching for something interesting be it beautiful or ugly or simple or complex. Just make art with feeling. Do those one star reviewers ever get anything out of being challenged by artists? High production cost and auto-tune can only get you so far.

This is one of the most dull and flat albums i have ever heard. The whole thing feels overlong and Nico’s vocals sre terrible

This lady seems nice enough, but she doesn't appear to understand the limits of her vocal range at all. Her low notes are fairly regularly flat and sound like they take far too much effort meaning they are difficult to listen to. Her high notes aren't much better.

I'm not completely against artists who objectively can't sing (Hello John Darnielle!) but there has to be something else to grab you. This sounds like a worse version of a ton of the folk my parents listened to when I was a kid. And every song blended into each other after a while, except during the unpleasantly screeching feedback parts.

Given that I found this really hard to get through, it's getting a:

1/5

At first, I was slightly confused how poorly this album rates on this website. I've loved this record since college, and in my memory it is GORGEOUS and mellifluous and easy to love and popular (at least among friends). Upon relisten, I also remembered how jarring Nico's voice is, and how some of the songs are like bizarre abstract paintings of noise -- it's maybe not as friendly as I thought. Personally, I adore these songs completely and think it is some of the most moving pop music ever recorded. It really feels like a lost VU album, with some strangely orchestrated folk tunes added. Recommend frequent relistens.

novamente, tinha tudo pra eu odiar.
ignorando as opiniões HORRÍVEIS dessa aqui, nao achei o album ruim nao, me pegou num dia bom. bem cru e experimental, simples e efetivo. um climinha péssimo e a produção ruim eh o charme. achei bacaninha…

For many listeners, Nico is best known for the three songs she sings on 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘝𝘦𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘵 𝘜𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 & 𝘕𝘪𝘤𝘰. 𝘊𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘴𝘦𝘢 𝘎𝘪𝘳𝘭 shows that there was far more to her than that. Her unmistakably deep voice and distinctive accent give the album a haunting beauty that sets it apart from the folk-pop records of its time.

The orchestral arrangements make the album surprisingly accessible, even if Nico herself famously disliked the added strings and flutes. Their lush sound contrasts beautifully with her detached, almost statuesque vocal delivery, creating an atmosphere that is both elegant and melancholic.

In hindsight, 𝘊𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘴𝘦𝘢 𝘎𝘪𝘳𝘭 feels like the closest Nico ever came to becoming a mainstream pop star. Instead, she chose a radically different path, embracing darker and far more experimental music on her later albums. Ironically, it was that uncompromising artistic direction that eventually made her an icon of alternative and art pop, with her influence growing significantly during the 1980s and even more after her death. Looking back, it’s hard not to see Nico as one of the most fascinating figures in the history of pop and rock music.

Eigenlijk vond ik dit wel een vibe voor de eerste paar nummers, totdat 'It Was A Pleasure Then' begon, dat als een slechte Velvet Underground track klinkt. Helaas is dat een beetje het thema op deze plaat: hoe meer Reed en Cale zich bemoeien met de track, hoe vervelender deze is om naar te luisteren. Had het lekker bij mooie, atmosferische chamber pop gehouden.

Blijkbaar was deze vrouw een ongelooflijke racist, dus bij deze: sla je lokale racist.

Keep it with mine

Is this album bad? Yes.
Is it also good and important? Maybe also yes.
In isolation, it’s easy to call Nico a bad singer and dismiss this record, but we have plenty of albums on this list from men who can’t sing so let’s set that metric aside. I've recently been served albums by Astrud Gilberto and Patti Smith, and I'll be damned if this record doesn't feel like it falls directly in the middle of those two. As an incremental step to whatever version of Punk Rock that Patti Smith was working on. In that sense, I guess Nico is doing double duty in Punk Rock origin story. Still, all that context still only does enough to earn her a "meh" rating.

All-timer