A good number of the so-called “classics” never quite seem to live up to the hype. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about movies, television, or music. There is a great book out entitled Kill Your Idols, in which a bunch of writers from our generation re-evaluate albums that were praised as generation-defining classics in their day. Many of the choices are obvious: someone needed to write that Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles is not the be-all, end-all of psychedelic music – and the author of the essay even makes some suggestions as to what albums deserve that title. Other choices, like Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica, are better-known as favorites of every hip critic from BBC disc jockey John Peel to the hipsters at Pitchfork Media.
For all the hype bestowed on “classic” artists, The Velvet Underground are thankfully absent from the post-post-modern cynics of Kill Your Idols. It’s easy to see why: they released only four albums, each one so markedly different in musical style from one another that they cater to wildly different tastes. As far as influence, The Velvets are as far-reaching to the worlds of Punk, Goth, Experimental, and Alternative music as The Beatles were to Pop and Rock.
In their early lineup, the band consisted of chief songwriter Lou Reed on guitar, rhythm guitarist Sterling Morrison, John Cale on viola, keys, and bass, and Maureen “Mo” Tucker on drums. Besides Cale’s viola, the group was far from conventional as far as musical setup: Reed used odd tunings on his guitar; on some songs, he tuned his guitar strings all to one note, creating a unique drone effect not often heard in Western music. Similarly, Tucker’s drumming is minimalist, opting for mallets rather than drum sticks, providing a tense pulse on some songs and a surreal, exotic rhythm on others.
Their first album, The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967), was made possible through pop art impresario Andy Warhol’s discovery of the group. Warhol suggested that Nico, a German model and musician, sing on several songs. Prior to this album, there had been nothing like it in popular music: here was a set of songs dealing explicitly with deviant sex, drug abuse, prostitution, and Reed’s observations of Warhol and his entourage. “Waiting For The Man” is about Reed waiting for a drug dealer on a street corner. “Venus In Furs” is about rough sex (“Taste the whip / Now bleed for me”). The most shocking set of lyrics is “Heroin,” where Reed describes in no uncertain terms the experience of injecting the drug and its effects. Nico’s voice is one of a kind, ambivalent and with a detectable accent. The rest of the band sounds great, with Cale’s viola adding a dark texture to the mix and Reed’s droning, screeching guitar. It cannot be overstated what a landmark album this is, and one that is endlessly intriguing, even with the passage of four and a half decades.
The following year, the band put out White Light / White Heat. The subject matter is darker, the music even more intense. This album is all about noise; it’s hard to imagine Sonic Youth or Smashing Pumpkins existing without this all-important predecessor. The title track is about amphetamines, ending with a guitar solo that is almost uncomfortably loud in the mix. “The Gift” pairs a brooding jam with Cale reading a short story written by Reed. “Lady Godiva’s Operation” is about a transsexual receiving a lobotomy. The album ends with “Sister Ray,” a seventeen-minute jam that features Cale on a heavily distorted organ; the song’s story is about as twisted as it gets: a group of transvestites have sailors over for an orgy, do heroin, and then one of the revelers dies while everyone else carries on. What they lacked in commercial potential, the band certainly made up for it with originality.
Cale left the band in late 1968, replaced by Doug Yule. The group’s sound shifted dramatically from White Light / White Heat to their third album, simply titled The Velvet Underground (1969). Given the abrasive nature of the band’s second release, the gentle tone of their third disc must have been a shock and surprise to contemporary listeners. “What Goes On” is an almost funky tune, celebratory in nature. Reed’s “Beginning To See The Light” and “Jesus” demonstrate some mental and emotional stability, or at least the desire for it. Drummer Moe Tucker has a rare turn on lead vocals on the dulcet “After Hours,” which closes the album. Although there isn’t a trace of feedback or squawking violas on the album, the group was not without their experimental edge: the nine-minute “The Murder Mystery” is a mostly spoken-word piece with a creepy organ part underneath.
One of those morons at Rolling Stone wrote in their “definitive” (I’m using the quotes sarcastically) history of rock and roll music that The Velvets’ final album, Loaded (1970), should have been their first. Why? So they might have achieved vast chart success and gone on to be New York’s answer to Grand Funk Railroad? Besides being an outwardly stupid thing to say, it cheapens the band’s musical journey. Loaded is the band’s most accessible album, with Doug Yule’s songs as lead vocalist (“Who Loves The Sun” and “New Age,” especially) sounding like contemporary pop hits. In fact, the entire album sounds like a collection of hits – Reed’s “Sweet Jane” is a riff-driven classic, and his ballad “Oh! Sweet Nuthin’” (sung by Yule) is his epic response to “Hey Jude.”
The album’s finest moment, and one of my favorite songs of all time, is “Rock And Roll.” It’s a meditation on music as being more than just a salve for coping with the drudgery of modern life, but as an art with mystical, soul-saving properties. Anyone interested in music theory will delight in knowing on this song, Reed takes the standard 12-bar blues chord progression of I-IV-V and inverts it to V-IV-I. It also gives Reed one more chance to show off his skills as a guitarist.
Before Loaded was even released, Reed was out of the picture. The band carried on, with Morrison and Tucker both eventually dropping out. With Yule as the only remaining member, he put out an album as The Velvet Underground entitled Squeeze in 1973. Blender.com gives it a single star, while Allmusic is a little more charitable, giving it a star and a half. Even if it’s listenable, something tells me the album is objectionable on principle alone.
Aside from the four Velvet studio albums, there are other discs worth picking up. One is Nico’s first solo album, Chelsea Girl (1967). It features songs by Reed and Cale, as well as their presence in the backing band. The album is a companion piece to The Velvet Underground & Nico, even though Nico despised the finished product. Her own solo career after that initial release carries a different tone, featuring Nico accompanying herself on harmonium, a pumped keyboard instrument. Although different, they are all hauntingly beautiful. Sadly, Nico died in a cycling accident in 1988.
Surprisingly, The Velvet Underground were great live. A live double-album simply entitled 1969 came out in 1974, capturing the band between their third and fourth albums, playing songs that were old, new, and never released. Regarding unreleased material, the mid-80’s saw the outtake collections VU and Another View, both of which are terrific. There are even some songs Reed would later rehash during his solo career.
Reed’s 1972 hit “Take A Walk On The Wild Side,” which revisits familiar territory (a transvestite prostitute), made him a leading figure in American Glam rock. He also caused a minor fuss when he finished his contract with RCA Records with the double-album Metal Machine Music in 1975. It is sixty-four solid minutes of noise. No rhythm, no melodies – just feedback. I dig it, but I can definitely see how it could drive more conventional listeners to homicide. John Cale had a decent solo career, but his best work has been as a producer: he went on to produce The Stooges’ first album, many of Nico’s solo albums, Horses by Patti Smith, and the Velvet-inspired punk group The Modern Lovers.
The band’s legacy is far-reaching, starting with the likes of Iggy Pop and David Bowie and running right on up to the modern music scene. However, the merit of good art shouldn’t just depend on how many other artists were touched by it – pointing out their influence exists almost as a guide. With only four albums, the band’s discography is not hard to locate; listening to the whole thing is just around three hours. That’s a train ride from Brooklyn to the Bronx. Still, the band’s music is endlessly intriguing; it may be a bit difficult to get into at first, but it is endlessly rewarding.
