White Light/White Heat

Good But/Over Rated

I don't think this holds a candle to & Nico. Like yeah, I love I Heard Her Call My Name and i think it's so underrated, i think Sister Ray is very overrated, because it's good, but top 1,000 of all time? Probably not even top 5,000 for me.

Title track is overrated, and Lady Godiva's Operation is very disturbing in lyrics and sound. The Gift was actually pretty good, just too much filler in the story, and there's nothing to say about Here She Comes Now, it's basically nothing, it's just a 2 minute interlude between the worst song and the best.

I think the gaps in between the verses in Sister Ray are good, but when i was listening to it i was thinking "I got the point, you guys are good, now get the song over with, we're only two verses away".

It's a good album. Even just for IHHCMN.

NEED TO HEAR RATING: HEAR

Best song: I Heard Her Call My Name
Worst song: Lady Godiva's Operation
Underrated: The Gift

Whenever my neighbor's kids start to get rowdy in the apartment above me, this stuff goes on the platter.

Anyway, if the s/t debut is a makeshift airplane that is finally flying, White Light/White Heat is that same plane going Mach 5 into a nuclear reactor. Honestly, this album was recorded in 1967, and it still sounds fucking fresh. Absolutely commanding, flaunty, unbelievably noisy, and raw, that even my record, which reviews on Discogs mark as being badly pressed, sounds bloody fantastic. You absolutely cannot hate this album. The opener is just noise layered on top of a garage rock track, The Gift is just a short story on top of noise, and Here She Comes Now is a drug-induced noise fest. B1 is fuzzy guitars with Reed going "whoa whoa whooooa" and I love every second of it

And then Sister Ray. Christ Almighty. Just listen to it. IT'S JUST NOISY GUITARS AND PIANOS IN DIFFERENT PITCHES AND LOU SPEWING SOME SHIT AND IT'S WACKY AS SHIT YO!

Do yourself a favor and listen to this right now. It'll change you I swear. I wouldn't be surprised if this was some CIA ploy to hypnotize people, but I'm fully on board with it.

Not completely without merit but its not very pleasant unlike most of The Velvet Underground's fantastic output

my favorite from the velvet underground and related artists so far. that said its incredibly annoying at times. the vocals on the gift are particularly grating.

Some of the sudden singing-to-speaking felt a bit jarring (like in Lady Godiva’s Operation). Not sure this is quite my vibe.

Fucking hell is this atrocious. Everything I hate about 60s experimentalism and psych all wrapped into one album.

I've already ranted enough on other albums about why I dislike this type of music, so I won't beat a dead horse, but fuck man, this is bad. Bad music, bad singing. I legit don't understand how anyone can enjoy this. Its just straight unpleasant.

So was this the inspiration for the end of Se7en or

The "singing" is atrocious and the sound quality is shit. Things are very cacophonous and annoying

Elegant.

exhausting

If there are gonna be three VU albums on here (and there should be), you need to add Loaded and ditch this one. Like I know it has "Sister Ray" on it and everything, but it's really their worst work.

Giving this a high score purely for the longer songs on here. Sucking on ma dingdong fr fr

The Gift is a little tedious, but overall I have to give this album five stars. I just can't imagine a world in which this album doesn't exist and in particular, Sister Ray is an all-timer. I hope people will still be listening to this in a thousand years.

"Fuck! We've got 2 hours studio time booked this afternoon and we've not done any rehearsing, let alone written any new material. What are we gonna do?"

I have no idea how this band supposedly became influential, because this is absolute cods.

Best way to describe it is just dumb

By rights I ought to love the Velvets but whenever I try to get into them it feels like something is missing.

VU at their most grimy and raw.

Some may hate this but I love it. The Gift is such a fun idea and a well written story.

One of those polarizing albums where I feel somehow in both camps, feels bizarre to give it a 3* but I feel like if I listened to it a year down the line it might be a 2*, or a 4*, or even a 1* or 5*

The Velvet Underground may be an innovative band with exciting concepts. Apparently, my understanding of music isn't sufficient enough to appreciate this album. I won't listen to it again. 1/5

Another one from Velvet Underground that was really far ahead of it's time, or maybe the drugs in the late 60s were just really strong. Or maybe it was just the copious amount of drugs ingested that needs to be taken into consideration. The retrospective reviews being so much more positive than the reviews of the time makes sense though - this would have been absolutely bonkers for an audience in 1968. Like their first record, this one has to be a love it or hate it thing. But I feel like this is an album that a lot of early punk rockers listened to and were inspired to pick up an instrument. I think I Like Velvet Underground an Nico a little better but this is up there. I'd call it like a 3.9/5