Chelsea Girl

All-timer

I liked this album more than I expected to. It's very calming to me. Her voice is not amazing, but it never got annoying to me. Definitely nothing epic here, but I wouldn't mind another listen.

Voices really matter to me, and I love a unique one—I think that’s why I like Tom Waits and Joanna Newsom more than others. But Nico’s does not work for me.

The music is dreary and very samey, especially samey in those first few songs. And by god Nico cannot sing. Very long 45 minutes

Ugh, I dislike her voice so much. These Days is a decent song, if someone else were singing it.

Imagine if there hadn’t even been any strings and flutes!

Really lovely and nice and good! :) Maybe too much syrup added by the strings, but the songs and vibe was great! I wonder if there's a version of it how Nico wanted it to sound?

Nice and cozy.

I like this one! I knew that one song from somewhere. Wasn't so aweinspiring I could give it a 5 though

beautiful.

Nice and noisy, experimental.

This is a bit of a weird one. Some sort of difficult songs, which is interesting, but didn't really hit with me either.

I thought that Chelsea Girl was an album that did it's job pretty well. I only really knew Nico from her collaboration with The Velvet Underground on the album named after both of them and i will say this album was better musically than that album was. Like i said, this album had some pretty good music with the main show stealer being the violins as they were really nice sounding. Nico also had a pretty nice voice and the lyrics on offer were also pretty good. I will say that there are some points where the songs were not very well composed and that wasn't fun to listen to but other than that, this album is pretty good.
Best Song: I'll Keep It With Mine
Worst Song: It Was A Pleasure Then

YO how can you guys hate music from The Royal Tenenbaums 😭😭😭

I think I've heard of this album but never actually listened to it. I'm not sure in what context I would have seen this but it is sort of familiar. Maybe from the Velvet Underground connection? And I do love a good woman-fronted pretentious art rock album so hopefully this fits the bill. I'm a little less optimistic after reading a few of the reviews. I should never read the reviews before listening to the album I suppose.
Halfway through and I'm a bit torn. I like the idea, I like the vibe, I like the music. But the voice is just not doing it for me. Its sort of a monotone drone that just forms words. I get the hate but I can also see how this could have been an amazing album. I feel like the voice doesn't fit with anything else - like they recorded all the music and then she just sang over it but with completely different recording equipment and no attempt at making the sound fit together.
Kind of hard to rate because I really wanted to like this one but the flat droning voice just took me out of it. Had the vocals been better and the production more even this would have been an easy 4. As it is, I find it hard to give it more than a couple of stars because I wouldn't ever listen to this again. 2.5/5

Irgendwie geil

This album is definitely worth a listen, but apart from 2 or 3 songs, I doubt I'll come back to it. I feel like it's getting some unnecessary hate in the reviews though. Do the same people complaining about Nico's voice feel the same about Lou Reed's out of tune singing?

Props to Nico for not giving up on the entertainment business altogether after having... THIS kind of botched production job on her work.

This is a very good lesson on how vital it is to find the right producer!

This was pretty good, but I certainly have a couple complaints. Firstly, the elephant in the room is that outside of that Velvet Underground record, I dont listen to a lot of Nico, and frankly a lot of it is because she was *extremely* racist, especially since I have no shortage of artists who can fill the weird chilly singer-songwriter shaped hole in my heart in her stead. Anyways, with that out of the way, the music is pretty solid here. This is a singer songwriter record with a sparse palette and kind of an artschool beatnik vibe. The Velvet Underground's debut is honestly not a bad point of comparison, especially in it's less rock centered moments. I also generally like Nico's performances here. She has a cold, droning voice that reads as eerie and confrontational, which tracks, given everything I know about the woman. The quiet acoustic guitars and flutes and cellos here give the album a slight neo-classical slant as well. I will say that while the aesthetic is cool and probably Chelsea Girl's defining attribute. It's also not an anesthetic that carries it; going sparse and drone-y and weirdly in a context like this only flies if the songs are good, and many are. These Days is pretty and wistful, as is Winter Song. It Was A Pleasure Then has some really cool noise stuff going on. And Eulogy To Lenny Bruce is one of the starkest, most vulnerable moments here. What remains is largely decent, but some of it loses a little definition in it's sparseness. And I'll also say that there are a couple of moments here that would have benefited from a slightly more tuneful style of singing. But overall, this is a neat album with some real stand outs. As I alluded to, I dont really see myself coming back here much, but I suppose Im probably glad to have heard it.

# ALBUM RATING GLOBAL
589 CURRENT Signing Off
UB40
Reviews
Wikipedia
588 Mar 04 2026
A Love Supreme (opens in new tab)
John Coltrane
5 3.63
Reviews
Wikipedia
A top ten album for me, the blend of attractive chamber-folk and uncompromisingly Teutonic interpretation from Nico, and subtle subversiveness, is extraordinary. As much today as it was in 1966, this record has the power to polarize….always a good sign.
587 Mar 03 2026
Chelsea Girl (opens in new tab)
Nico
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