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DISCOGRAPHY
Velvet Underground & Nico (1966) 9.5/10
White Light/White Heat (1967) 9/10
Velvet Underground (1968) 6.5/10
Live 1969 (live, 1969) 6.5/10
Loaded (1970) 6/10
Squeeze (1972) 4/10
VU (archival, 1968-1969) 5/10
Another View (archival, 1967-1969) 5/10
See also Lou Reed
Their drummer, Maureen "Moe" Tucker, is one of the most unique percussionists in the history of Rock music. She got her chops from playing along to an LP of African drumming at home, which in turn influenced her unconventional kit set-up, which included a bass drum on its side and no cymbals.
In an interview with Jeff Clark from 1998, she said: "I always hated drummers like Ginger Baker, oh my God, every possible moment smashing something. I just hated that, even before I started playing drums. So, when I started to play, Charlie Watts was a big influence on me, and I don't think I even realized at the time why I liked him so much. He plays so simply. He never does anything unnecessary. I just find it so much more effective."
German model Christa Paffgen, also known as Nico, entered the scene when she was introduced to the band's co-manager Paul Morrissey, as he would later state that the band "needed somebody who had some form of talent."
At the time of her introduction, she had recorded a single (The Last Mile / I'm Not Saying) produced by future Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, which would be published through Immediate Records, a label owned by the Rolling Stones' manager and producer Andrew Loog Oldham. A passionate enthusiast of the rising folk movement propelled by songwriters such as Bob Dylan (whom she would briefly date), Nico's attention to melody would not impair her strictness to annunciation so that every word would be clear, which respected Lou Reed's lyric-writing.
But the band hated her addition nonetheless, seeing through Paul Morrissey's condescending effort to remove Reed from singing lead. Inevitably the band would compromise and give her three songs to sing, but otherwise her musical involvement would be to stand aside and play tambourine, or nothing at all.
The Velvet Underground & Nico is an album of several dimensions, all neatly split into its individual songs. Track-by-track is a new adventure of the edgy avant-garde while also embracing the more traditional fun of pop music and rock 'n' roll.
After so much tension integrating into the band, Nico would depart after the record's release to further initiate her solo career, which would be tremendously influential to experimental folk music, and even early Goth culture with her leanings into chamber music and the avant-garde, becoming known as the "priestess of darkness."
White Light/White Heat
Desperate to make the band's music more accessible, Reed fired Cale from the Velvet Underground in September of 1968, threatening Tucker and Morrison that he would leave the band himself if they didn't go along with him. As a result, the music's quality took a nosedive, making the incident of Cale's departure one of Rock music's greatest tragedies, no less horrendous than the premature death of Jimi Hendrix or the murder of John Lennon. To this day I grieve over it, wondering what other masterpieces might have materialized had the band's financial situation been better.
Following this, Cale's solo career would garner him some respect as an art-pop figure in the 1970s. Much like Lou Reed's solo career later, Cale would see much more commercial success as a singer/songwriter.
Cale's replacement would be the multi-instrumentalist Doug Yule.
The Velvet Underground
Loaded
Despite lacking any original members of the group, Doug Yule fronted the effort of Squeeze to sustain the Velvet Underground name. Yule recorded himself on nearly all instruments except drums, which were played by none other than Deep Purple's Ian Paice. Yet it was ultimately a futile and pointless project, considered by most to be an insult to the band's legacy. The aforementioned absence of all original members make the album misleading in terms of authenticity and for marketing purposes: on one side, the record is simply not by the Velvet Underground, just by one guy that had worked with them; and on the other, the record is a cash-grab for a demographic that didn't exist — the only people who would be excited to hear a Velvet Underground album would be interested in music making an artistic statement, not soulless and generic ditties emulating only a portion of the real thing.
Occasionally the record indulges in some Lou Reed-approved glam-rock flamboyance (the saxophone for Dopey Joe and Send No Letter, the ragtime piano for Crash, the hard-rock guitars for Mean Old Man) but mostly the songwriting is country-rock (Wordless, She'll Make You Cry, Friends, Send No Letter, Jack & Jane).
Where the music shows similarities to previous Velvet Underground releases is only because they seem to be replaying them. The opener Little Jack is pretty much Lonesome Cowboy Bill combined with the train-like "choo-choo" harmonies of the Rolling Stones' Sympathy for the Devil, and Caroline is pretty much Sweet Bonnie Brown / It's Just Too Much.
While Yule takes most flak for the record's existence, the band manager Steve Sesnik was really to blame. Sesnik was who fired all members besides Yule (including Maureen Tucker, who'd later resort to employment as a grocery sacker) and who would ignore all suggestions from Yule and Paice as to how the record should be mixed, and likely reinforced the commercialism of the record to squash out any hope of if matching in quality to any other Velvet Underground release.
After Squeeze's commercial failure, Yule would finally disband the Velvet Underground in May of 1973.
On July 17th, 1988, Christa Paffgen, the singer known as Nico, died of a brain hemorrhage while riding her bike on vacation in Spain. She was 49.
Sterling Morrison would die of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma on August 30th, 1995.
In 1996, upon the Velvet Underground's induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the band would perform a newly written song dedicated to Morrison, Last Night I Said Goodbye to My Friend. (A performance in which either Cale or Reed miss their cue around the 2:30 mark.)
Lou Reed would die of liver disease on October 27th, 2013. On the day of his death alone, Pearl Jam, My Morning Jacket, Phish, the Killers, and the Arctic Monkeys would all perform Lou Reed or Velvet Underground songs in his honor. Among those who would also pay respects were Patti Smith, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, and David Byrne. And me. Obviously.
TOP 10 SONGS
Heroin (1966)
Sister Ray (1967)
I'm Waiting for the Man (1966)
Venus in Furs (1966)
Femme Fatale (1966)
Sunday Morning (1966)
Lady Godiva's Operation (1967)
Run Run Run (1966)
What Goes On (1968)
Sweet Jane (1970)
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