Chelsea Girl

I've listened to the Velvet Underground and Nico for years and have my own thoughts on that album, but this was the first time I'd listened to Nico solo material. It was ok. The strings are lush, but the other instruments and Nico's vocals are fairly sparce. It was a good vibe while on, but other than that just fine. 3/5

Holy crap, she's a horrible singer. Note to Andy Warhol, Velvet Underground, Bob Dylan, and Jackson Browne: you can't hear good looks. I might have given this a 2 because the underlying music was often pleasant enough but then I had to sit through "It Was a Pleasure Then" which reminds me why I dislike the Velvet Underground so vehemently. Feedback, awful guitar playing...yup, it's the Velvet Underground. This is one of the few albums that made me regret my commitment to listening to every album at least two times. Awful.

The first influencer, who thought being famous entitels to start a music career. Thanks to her we have Youtubers doing songs. Nico walked so BibisBeautyPalace could walk. (Point for not hiding the german accent behind a fake one)

Nico is a German folk singer and supermodel. Not sure why she was a supermodel... She looks like a scarecrow. She should have kept to modelling though, cause she can't sing her way out of a plastic bag. This album is fucking horrible. Apparently she sang on that Velvet Underground album with the big fucking banana on it. This is like fucking Dollar Store Joni Mitchell. It's like if a Renaissance Fair caught fire, and got launched into a garbage dump. Utter trash.

Favourite songs: These Days

Least favourite songs: Little Sister, Winter Song, It Was a Pleasure Then (whoever mixed this garbage deserves to be shot out of a cannon into a river of shit. This is great music to torture someone to).

1/5.....negative stars if I could

I have a lot of time for this. I’m so surprised the average rating is as low as it is?

Sure, her voice is an acquired taste and yeah, this folky material isn't necessarily the best fit for her. She would immediately pivot away from this style on subsequent albums in favor of a stark, doomy, gothic, proto-slowcore sound, which is shocking and amazing.

This album is still pretty good though and I think it has grown on me after multiple listens. There are no other records that are like this.

Beautiful folk music mixed with biblically accurate animal noises. What a fun ride

Nico thought of herself as a bit of a chanteuse, many others did too. Warhol liked her, she was a bit of a muse of sorts, so he insisted she sing for The Velvet Underground, but she'd still go solo and the Velvet Underground were along for the ride but this would not be anything like a follow up to that album.

We're in for avant-garde shit here, that's to say we're in for some shit here. Shit production. Shit voice. Shit everything. Not 1 star level shit, but not far off...

Not as good as "The Marble Index" but a good album nonetheless.

Absolute slog to get through. Like listening to a whale sing over strings and flutes. I should like this because I like what she did with the Velvet Underground and I like many of the songwriters she worked with, but I don’t. This album would be 10 times better with any other person singing these songs.

Heroin raga, this is an exercise in texture and pulse. No bass, no drums - the rhythm that there is comes from the trance-like vamping strings and droned guitars that disolve into frenzied feedback. Flat monotone vocals with all the enthusiasm of an exhausted au pair singing a lullaby, a great performance of alienated ennui, of a bored hipster affect aggresively unimpressed with everything that could possibly exist. I know the mood, but it's not exactly fount of creativity. Way too much irritating flute. These Days is very good though, the only song that comes close to her songs on the banana album.

Nice instrumentals, and I can get behind a lady with a deeper voice, especially from this era. However, it was very samey after a while, 2*.

Forgettable? I listened to it and immediately forgot I listened to it.

I had the very first Velvet Underground and Nico LP as a kid, purchasing it as my interests in punk were starting to develop, and I don't think I ever really came to appreciate it. A lot of similar sounds on this release, but I seem to have aged enough to understand it now. Much of the performance, writing and instrumentation on this is still the Velvet Underground, and it's uniquely wonderful. Thoughtful and interesting compositions pulling from a vast array of stringed instruments and beyond. Jackson Brown lends his writing to a couple of tracks, as well as performs. Even Bob Dylan has a writing credit on one song. And of course, Nico's contralto is the thread that weaves all this together, often providing a weight to the softness of the music, grounding it's ethereal nature and giving it relevance.

have always loved Nico’s voice. Even though she was untrained and pushed in a particular musical direction early on, there is something completely unique about her tone. I think a lot of my affection for it comes from her work with The Velvet Underground.

The opening two ballads, The Fairest of the Seasons and These Days, are stunning. Fragile, melancholic and beautifully understated. They set the bar incredibly high.

After those first two tracks though, the album starts to feel repetitive. The arrangements become softer and more ornate, and for me it drifts into something that almost feels like a wistful film or Disney style soundtrack. It loses the edge and tension that made those opening songs so powerful.

It feels like the album is missing something. Perhaps that darker, experimental backdrop she had with The Velvet Underground. There is beauty here, but not quite enough bite.

Favourite songs: The Fairest of the Seasons and These Days
Least favourite song: The later tracks blur together for me
Album artwork: Very sixties and very cool. Effortlessly stylish and perfectly in keeping with the era

Theres probably at least 1001 albums better than this

I can tolerate Nicos vocals on the VU album, but a whole album of her and the flute, string arrangement is awful. Reading she was discontent with the flute added by the producer without her permission makes me respect her a little more. Overall not one I’ll rush back to, but enough not to give the 1 star rating.

Starts much better than it ends. The second half is certainly keeping this for being elite. 3.5/5

Didn't connect with this one. Voice isn't for me. She needs Cale/Reed to help her out.

Lite väl jobbig röst för ett helt album.