The Velvet Underground & Nico

When I first decided to do this challenge, there were a few albums that I knew, without a doubt, that they would be on the list no matter who wrote the book. This on is pretty close to the top of those choices. This is an amazing album that is not just good, but is also very influential. Very happy to listen to it yet again.

I've loved this one since I found it in high school. This is a great example of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. Massive influence on all rock that came afterward.

Was okay, but a bit too old-school for my taste

So incredibly NOT looking forward to listening to this. Lou Reed has all the bad voice characteristics of Bob Dylan, and none of the redeeming qualities.

Sunday Morning: Yep. Suspicion confirmed

I'm Waiting for the Man: this sounds like a third grader wrote it. Why do people think this album is so great?

Femme Fatale: Weird (intentional?) distortion is jarring and unsettling. Zero merit in the background vocals. These are not good singers

Venus in Furs: stylistically, the music reminds me of the The Doors, which is a plus. Absent the atrocious singing, this could be a cool song. The lyrics might even be ok, but how they're vocally presented just takes all merit from them for me

Run Run Run: Sounds like a bad Creedence Clearwater Revival cover band. Horrible guitar screeching. WTF is this garbage?

All Tomorrow's Parties: Starting with a bit of promise. Singing is super flat. If this is such a great album, I could make a "top 1,001 album" with all the ZERO musical talent I possess. In the TV show This Is Us, Mandy Moore's character, who is a MARVELOUS singer gets told she is "Pittsburgh good" at an audition for a record label. If she's only Pittsburgh good, then this band is "elementary school chorus bad" from a vocals perspective.

Heroin: this song has some potential. Sounds cool. Slow pace, light drums, in tune, sort of twangy guitar....and now Lou Reed is ruining it with his Bob Dylan impression. Picking up speed, speeding toward disaster now. And back to the slow pace and Lou's completely unpolished...uh, everything. This fucking sucks, man. I hate Lou Reed. This is torture. How many songs are left? Oh god, four more. And this one isn't even half over... Caterwauling, horrible screeching feedback on the guitar. Terrible. This is THE song a teenager was listening to when their dad burst into the room and said "You call this music? This is just NOISE." Then the dad sits down in the kitchen and says "I just don't know about that kid, Martha" and pours himself a whiskey, wondering where he went wrong

There She Goes Again: Alright, poppy potential...nope, here comes Lou Reed to ruin everything. Ultra simplistic lyrics, lame kindergarten rhyme scheme, and couldn't carry a tune if he had as many arms as on octopus

I'll Be Your Mirror: Cool doo-wop sort of opening riff. Into it. Nico singing here. Eh, not bad. Not good either. Very simple lyrics, but not an entirely unpleasant song, I guess. Kind of off key

The Black Angel's Death Song: frantic, screeching strings. Bad. Unenjoyable. Oh, here's Lou Reed again doing his best to be the worst. Is he... hissing into the microphone??? Or filling up a tire. WTF is this?!? Coming back to edit my notes, and re-reading the song's title, I will give the benefit of the doubt here and say that this is EXACTLY what a "death song" of a black angel would sound like. It does make a person want to die...

European Sun: ooh, kinda Beatlesesque. This is fun. Poppy 60s guitar, nice pacing. Oh, here's Lou! Oh, wtf is that noise? Dragging a metal garbage can on the street? And here we go with out of tune, played too fast guitars, and...this is like when you give a kid an electric guitar for his birthday and he confidently (and wholly incorrectly and without any musical knowledge whatsoever) just starts playing as fast as he can. The pace gives me anxiety. Somehow this has devolved into something even worse.

I'm wondering if this is like avant garde or something? Like such high art that an untrained person like me shouldn't even bother trying to understand. I mean, it does have a Warhol painting on the cover, and like wtf was that guy even doing? That's "art?"

Nah, this band fucking SUCKS.

Album: 0/10 would not recommend. Will continue to shit talk in the future

Later in the day, thinking about the time this was released:

This was not "ahead of its time." There has been no time in the last 50ish years that this would have been musically relevant. There was no boundary pushing here. This is just bad music made by bad musicians. There is no distillation of elements to make the complex art form simple. There is no taking of existing conventions and modifying them to produce something new and different. I would honestly be surprised if any of this album was more than just a loose idea and the old trope of the band leader saying something like "just follow along." Even then, I have heard competent musicians do this, and still sound cohesive and coherent. This is just a fucking mess. I fail to see any artistic merit. Anyone who claims to "get" this album, I would immediately assume was insufferably pretentious.

What a great album. I used to not like the Nico tracks, but have come around on them since watching the VU doc.

I don't know about this. Like everyone else I've been preached to about this album for years, but I just don't get it. Some of the tracks are great, some are filler, and some feature Niko prominently, and should be ignored.

Three key points make this a 5 star masterpiece you should listened to before you die.

1. Light years ahead of its time.
2. Arguably the most influential album of all time.
3. A commercial flop.

"Everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band!” Brian Eno

I've already heard "Heroin" off this album, which serves as a prime example of the psychedelic rock on display. The tone can swing from easy breezy pop to uptempo rockers and lyrics of sexuality and drug use. Your enjoyment of this album may vary depending on how much you tolerate the experimentation and the vocals as Lou Reed's deadpan delivery and Nico's contralto singing are not everyone's cup of tea. For those who can handle it, it's a solid recommendation.

I have previously scored a Nico album poorly and White Light / White heat. Thisalbum though is a classic and all the things right about The Velevt Undergound.

Without listening to this again I know its a 5/5. Every song on the album is a classic. The opening 2 songs are so powerful. Heroin is unreal!! All classics.

Favourite song: The black angels death song
Least favourite song: There is not a bad song on the album
Album artwork: could even be the best album artwork ever

I was introduced to the Velvet Underground through R.E.M.'s cover songs before I was even a teenager. I bought this album then, and never clicked with it. Glad I listened to it again 30+ years later because this indeed lives up to the hype. This album features so much experimentation for the era; studio tricks, layers of instrumentation, stereo panning, improvised jams. There's so much here to digest. So much beauty, but it's also juxtaposed by an ugly chaos in many places. I think I respond most to the idea that these are musicians truly creating. Nothing by the numbers here. This is art, and I'm here for it.

Nico and the banana cover is the only things saving this from a 1. So annoying.

Experimentelles Werk von Andy Warhol und einer Deutschen Sängerin. Manches ist gelungen aber manches aber auch ein Griff ins WC. Ich verspüre trotz großer Namen keinen Drang zu Wiederhören.

Repetitive soundscapes with bad singing. I just don’t think I like the velvet underground. Cool Andy Warhol cover though? Finishing it was rough, wth was that last track?

There was a moment when I was in my late teens and I heard I'm Waiting For The Man and was swayed by the apparent coolness of whatever statement it was trying to make.

There has been so much development in my own taste and in the progress of music in general that this just isn't relevant any more. VU didn't open a door for anyone - the saw an open door that no one else wanted to walk through and helped themselves to a banquet they didn't deserve.

3 stars, minus 1 for Nico's terrible singing.

Good to very good

After Run Run Run, the album went downhill. It seems like they were just making noise for the sake of making noise. The Black Angel's Death Song features screeching violins and air compressor noises for some reason.

Favourite songs: Run Run Run, I'm Waiting For The Man, Venus in Furs, There She Goes Again, Sunday Morning, Femme Fatale

Least favourite songs: The Black Angel's Death Song, European Son, All Tomorrow's Parties

3/5

I love the energy and vibe of this. A lot of it is pretty iconic. I like the vocals. I like the artiness. I love the droning violins, the weird jangly guitars, the heart-attack inducing, thumping drums. They add to this kind of weird oppressive atmosphere on it. Heroin, jeez what a stressful time, but it's so good. It's not their best album in my opinion (I prefer the more accessible Loaded) but it's still great.

Starts off ok and then just keeps getting worse.

I'm so glad I listened to that. There is such an obvious straight line from Lou Reed to Bob Dylan and in the opposite direction to the talking heads. That was magnificent, so familiar and unlike anything else. Brilliant.

HLs: "I'll Be Your Mirror", "Femme Fatale", "Venus in Furs", "All Tomorrow's Parties" (again with this song), "The Black Angel's Death Song"

Finally sitting down with this oft-talked about album. Earns its reputation as prescient of many later genres of music- CureSonicYouthR.E.M.Morrissey and so on

wasn't feeling all of the extended jams & drone elements, just *most* of them

May 21 2023