Velvet Underground - Loaded - The Poll

Obvious choices, but still, it's between "Sweet Jane", "Rock & Roll", "New Age". "Head Held High" just missing out.

you were "brought up" to have opinions on VU?

... ever since he was a baby on his mama's knee, in fact

Always had a soft spot for "Sweet nuthin'".

Oh! Sweet Nuthin' is the one that sticks in my head/throat every time.

I have a soft spot for the entire album

"Who Loves the Sun" sounds more like Freddie and the Dreamers than Anybody else ever did!

"Lou were made for me/ everybody tells me so"

doug yule sings a bunch of songs and sounds just like lou! why even bother!? moe tucker doesn't play on it! doug yule was invited to join the band because he's a pisces and lou wanted to balance out the star signs in the band! what a fucking hippy!

doug yule sings a bunch of songs and sounds just like lou!

A Nice Lou tho

"Head Held High" for the backup vocals.

Doug sounds like Lou? Where/how?

Doug looked like Lou in those days (Lou w/ curly hair), I'll give that much...

Lou has curly hair! He definitely did sound like Lou!

maybe it's just me then - i thought lou sang everything for years

doug sounds like lou on 'candy says', not so much on this tho

Went for "Oh! Sweet Nuthin" by a nose over "Who Loves the Sun." "Sweet Jane" in the end not one of their best repeat-repeat-repeat tracks -- these days I would listen to "What Goes On" or "Beginning to See the Light" a hundred times before "Sweet Jane" again. And "Rock and Roll" sounds great but is dopey. Dopey like the dwarf, not dopey like "Heroin."

I love the bit from two thirds of the way through, where most groups would have just ended the song, but the VU come back, culminating in Lou bellowing "oh BABY! OH BABY! OH BABY! OOOOO WOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWWOOWOWOWO well it's ALRIGHT!!!" etc.

That main guitar riff is awesome

Doug looked like Lou in those days (Lou w/ curly hair), I'll give that much...

Who is curlier, you decide:

http://olivier.landemaine.free.fr/vu/media/photos/lostloadedshots/hth01.jpg

This was the only Velvets album me and my pals could find back in our discovering-music-days. Their legend was a tad bewildering as a result. 'Who Loves The Sun'.

you were "brought up" to have opinions on VU?... ever since he was a baby on his mama's knee, in fact

But still the answer was to reconsider the Doug Yule era.

voted oh!, but my favorite song is actually the fully loaded dylan-y version of 'I found a reason' (don't like the real version at all)

great album -- amazing that they made 4 radically different records in just about four years. those were different times! don't think there's a dud track on this, but i do prefer the Lou-sung "New Age" on Live 1969.

This was the only Velvets album me and my pals could find back in our discovering-music-days.

You think that's bewildering? The only album I could find at the time was "Squeeze" !

Never cared much for the Lonesome Cowboy Bill-Train Round The Bend sequence honestly.

^^^ anyone gonna defend that?

(I'm not)

defend the songs or my opinion?

The songs are nice but having heard them once I don't feel like listening to them again.

the songs, your opinion should be the default one imo

lonesome cowboy bill is probably the least interesting track here, but I love 'Train Round The Bend' ... funny that "cowboy bill" is allegedly inspired by William Burroughs though.

Who Loves the Sun, for being so out of character, and so lovely.

lonesome cowboy bill is probably the least interesting track here, but I love 'Train Round The Bend'

ditto

this is one of those last gasp albums that is pretty slight compared to the band's earlier work but more enjoyable than a lot of the leader's solo work, like Trompe LeMonde or All Shook Down

No one repping for "I Found a Reason" yet?? That one's fantastic. My pick.

"Oh! Sweet Nuthin'" without a doubt.

This is my least favorite and least played VU album (not counting Squeeze), though it was the first I owned. Love the bookends, but most of the rest kind of bugs me.

I'll probably go w/Train Round The Bend. I think its placement on the album and the lyric kind of undercut how rockin' out it is...

Compare the very beginning a bit to Bowie around the time of DJ...

I hate this record & think pretty much every other available version of "New Age," "Sweet Jane," and "Rock and Roll" smoke this album's limp versions - this record was such a massive disappointment for me when I finally got it, because I was a huge Lou fan by then, had as many of his records & bootlegs as I could lay my hands on but Loaded was hard to find in my town for some reason. Finally got it and...wow...so this is what the band would sound like if they sucked, eh?

i dunno, i think both rock and roll and sweet jane are pretty tight, perfectly executed rock songs on this album. not saying the earlier versions aren't great, but there's something kinda magic about the sound of the riffs on the Loaded renditions.

BTW, either Doug Yule stole the fancy chord change from "Who Loves The Sun" for the track "Friends" on Squeeze, or he wrote it in the first place. It's pretty untypical for Lou. We'll never know.

Incredibly close call between "Sweet Jane," "Rock and Roll," and "Oh! Sweet Nuthin." I'll go with "Rock and Roll," which ranks alongside the Modern Lovers' "Roadrunner" and a very few others as the greatest song ever about the genius of Top 40 radio (or at least what once was Top 40 radio).

"Train Comin Round The Bend" is just great. I don't even mind Lonesome Cowboy Bill so much - I mean yeah, sure it's dumb and goofy - but I like that it exists. It's their "Rocky Racoon" or something. The token "worst song". It's for kids! Yodel-ey-hee-oh.

That said, would have been cool if it had been axed for one of the cast-offs that showed up on Fully Loaded like "Oh Gin" - or even slightly earlier stuff like "Foggy Notion".

Unfair but:

VU >>>>>>>> Loaded

ya for sure

love this album - a lot more than various underrated aerosmith albums I can tell ya that much. hard to pick a favorite moment. Who Loves the Sun is such a gorgeous slice of AM pop, really uncharacteristic (I remember my mom hearing me play it and digging it lol). The Robert Mitchum line in New Age. The aforementioned yowling "baby baby yeahyeahyehhehyeh it's allright oooh its allright" at the end of Rock n Roll. The climactic wailing guitar + double-time drumming at the end of Oh! Sweet Nuthin. The cracklin drums on Head Held High.

VU >>>>>>>> Loaded

ehhh maybe

xpost VU definitely has more of a Sterling Morrison presence, which is always a good thing. Weird that Doug Yule actually plays a lot of the lead guitar on Loaded.

i just like the vibe of this album so much, hard to pick one song. like, i'm way more often in the mood to put this on than vu and nico or white light/white heat. i might even like it more than vu and nico. definitely not more than the other two though.

yeah i think that was the last time he did it til the VU reunion in 93... did he keep playing it live like that afterwards though? i can't remember now...

guess he didn't make metallica learn it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JucJAuDKqKw

whoa, I don't know my VU lore here, is the version on Peel Slowly the "bad" full length version?

No, the first time was on the "Fully Loaded" edition.

I assume that Lou would have been involved with this new box, initially at least. Being how they fixed that version of "I can't stand it" from the "eighties mix" to the "what it would have been like if they'd mixed it in the sixties" mix on the last box, um, yeah optimism.

this looks really pointless

xp no it was on peel slowly and see first

"I Stand Corrected: F it is!"

Um, yeah the full length tracks for Sweet Jane and New Age were on Peel Slowly and See.

Funny, everywhere seems to talk about the re-instated long version of "Rock and Roll" but I can't find any version that isn't 4:45 ono.

There was an even longer (Full-er Length?) "New Age" on the 2nd disc of Fully Loaded.

xp yeah, i'm not sure what they're talking about re: rock and roll ... there's a longer guitar break in one of the fully loaded version i think?
longer new age never seemed all that monumental to me.
dunno, still seems crazy to me that in six discs, there's not one version of the album in its original form.

_Loaded: Special Edition_, with new edits from Lucasfilm.

ha yeah... over on twitter someone said: "it's like finding out "Like a Rolling Stone" had an extra verse and adding it to all future versions of Highway 61"

dunno, still seems crazy to me that in six discs, there's not one version of the album in its original form.

Presumably, they're saving this for the inevitably forthcoming ORIGINAL ALBUMS boxed set.

UnLoaded edition

followed by the ReLoaded edition, with all instrumental backing tracks replaced with Metallica

as lou always intended

special edition includes hologram of Mo Tucker doing the Ostrich

Just noticed that this new version of Max's loses two tracks ("Who Loves The Sun?" & "Sweet Jane"--both from the second set) from the deluxe edition.

yeah, pretty lame... but we gotta have both versions of lonesome cowboy bill!
They could've done away w/ the surround sound disc (which is not something i'm set up for) and included the full Max's tape + rehearsals + the Freeman tape on a sixth disc.

followed by the ReLoaded edition, with all instrumental backing tracks replaced with Metallica

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 25 August 2015 20:05 (57 minutes ago) Permalink

Just wait until you hear Hetfield's vocals on "New Age"!

Hey, remember when the self-titled/3rd box came out, and we were all, "Pfft, only part of the Matrix recordings?! They'll probably release a Matrix box a year later so we have to re-buy that shit."

Welp,
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014WIZP96?ref_=sr_1_3&s=music&qid=1441415763&sr=1-3&tag=viglink20252-20&pldnSite=1

Whoa weird. Thought they would want to space that stuff out but I guess not.

some days this is my favorite Velvets album, and they're definitely one of my all time favorite bands, but I still won't be buying this. It could just be reissue / boxset burnout, but this tracklist looks very meh to me. I do sorta wanna hear the mono versions (would these be 'fold down' style, then?) and the demos, I guess.

I'm happy if that Matrix box turns out to be real.

I do sorta wanna hear the mono versions (would these be 'fold down' style, then?)

It'd probably have to be--no way would Atlantic have been spending money on a proper mono mix when the format was for all intents and purposes dead for an act like the VU.

Anyone get this yet? The price is sorta reasonable, but I already have the original album and Live at Max's, and I have no earthly use for 5.1 DVD surround sound or whatever the hell it is. But the demo disc and mono disc have me considering it. I bet the booklet is cool, too...

Thought revive would be about new Lou bio.

This Max's remaster sounds WAY better than the previous one

I just had a little moment when "Pale Blue Eyes" from the Max's set popped up on shuffle. The first half Lou sings in what I consider his "Velvets" voice, a little high, maybe a tiny bit strained, but still "singing". The second half is in his solo voice, more declamatory, a little behind the beat, a little clipped and sarcastic. I am sure he does it in other sports, just this particular instance really stood out to me.

The Max's set was also probably the first VU record I ever owned, cuz I always deferred to live records when I was a teenager cuz my budget was limited and live records usually provided value, plus I was such a Who nut that I was convinced that every band's live record was like "Live at Leeds", really raw, awesome vers of songs that were slicked up in the studio.

But so, I never really loved this record and I am sure for 6 months or so I was all "the Velvet Underground? Talk about to overrated!" to anyone who would listen but I've always been fascinated by it. The shoddy recording, the shoddy playing...it is such an amazing document of people not giving a shit about a band who in just a few yrs seemingly everyone would be obsessed with.

yeah i find max's pretty charming these days, though it's far from the incredible heights of Live 1969/Matrix Tapes. and yeah, as a kid, both max's and live 1969 really made me re-think how a great (the greatest?) band (or any artist) could be totally overlooked in their time.

& yeah, it's interesting how different lou's vocalizing is on the Max's tape than anywhere else -- more emotive, maybe a bit more generic, but still pretty great.

Always wondered why Lou spells love with a 'w' in "Cool it Down." Is it supposed to be a reference to radio station call letters? That's the only explanation I can come up with. Anybody?

Ditto. I think that's the best explanation too.

that moment toward the beginning of "rock & roll" when THE SONG GETS LOUDER ON ITS OWN

xpost - isn't it "double your L-O-V-E"? Lou's saying that there's this prostitute who's working hard enough to make him have two orgasms in an hour.

wow that makes a lot more sense than WLOVE

line's always puzzled me

THE VELVET UNDERGROUND

LOADED (FULLY RE-LOADED EDITION)
The Acclaimed Reissue Of VU’s 1970 Classic Arrives On Vinyl

For The First Time As A Limited-Edition Of 1,970 Copies
Featuring 9 180-Gram LPs And 4 7-Inch Singles
Stereo, Mono, And “Full-Length” Mixes Of The Original Album Are Featured Along With Demos, Studio Outtakes, And Live Recordings,

With Dozens Of Tracks Making Their Vinyl Debut

Lou Reed sang about the lifesaving powers of “Rock & Roll” on Loaded, his fourth and final studio album with The Velvet Underground. Since it arrived in November 1970, generations have been shaking to the album’s “fine, fine music,” experiencing their own kinds of musical salvation thanks to songs like “Sweet Jane,” “Head Held High,” and “Oh! Sweet Nuthin’.”

Dig! spotlights Loaded with a new vinyl boxed set that includes nearly all the music from its expansive 2015 CD reissue, Loaded: Re-Loaded 45th Anniversary Edition. The forthcoming collection, LOADED (FULLY RE-LOADED EDITION), features nine LPs with stereo, mono, and “Full-Length” mixes of the original album along with a generous selection of demos, studio outtakes, and live recordings. Several tracks from the set will be available on vinyl for the first time.

LOADED (FULLY RE-LOADED EDITION) is limited to 1,970 numbered copies and will be available on 24th March 2023. The set is available exclusively on Dig! for £250 and comes in a deluxe, foil-wrapped slipcase containing the vinyl, a poster of the album’s cover art, and an illustrated booklet with liner notes by Lenny Kaye that appeared in Loaded: Re-Loaded 45th Anniversary Edition.

In addition to the nine LPs, the set also comes with four 7-inches that reproduce the official singles and B-sides released from Loaded. “Rock & Roll” and “Who Loves The Sun” both come in the generic record sleeves used at the time by Cotillion, the band’s label. The former is being reissued for the first time ever, as the original release was cancelled in 1970, while the latter is being reissued for the first time since 1970. The other two singles come in picture sleeves originally released in Europe: “Head Held High” in France and “Sweet Jane” in Germany.

LOADED (FULLY RE-LOADED EDITION) opens with three different versions of the original studio album: remastered stereo and mono mixes, plus a “Full-Length” version that boasts extended takes of “Sweet Jane,” “Rock & Roll” and “New Age.”

More than two dozen recordings from the making of Loaded appear on vinyl for the first time in the new collection. The music explores the creative process behind the album with early versions of “Oh! Sweet Nuthin’” and “Lonesome Cowboy Bill” and alternate mixes for “Rock & Roll” and “Train ’round The Bend.” Songs that would eventually appear on Reed’s 1972 solo debut make appearances as well, with early versions of “Ocean,” “I Love You,” and “Ride Into The Sun.”

Those studio recordings are bolstered by a selection of live performances recorded before Loaded debuted in November 1970. A few weeks into making the album, on May 9, 1970, the band played at the Second Fret in Philadelphia. Bob Kachnycz, a fan, hitchhiked to the show and recorded the show on reel-to-reel. The band was down to a trio that night: Reed, Sterling Morrison, and Doug Yule, who alternated between bass and drums to fill in for Moe Tucker, who was pregnant then. This show, available for the first time on vinyl, uncovers early performances of several songs destined for the album: “Cool It Down,” “Rock & Roll,” and “New Age.”

The second performance was recorded in New York City at Max’s Kansas City nightclub on August 23, 1970, the day Reed left The Velvet Underground. Several songs from the show were released in 1972 as the live album, Live At Max’s Kansas City. In 2004, Rhino released a remastered version of the live album that was expanded to include both sets the band played that night. Featured on two LPs in the new collection, the recordings touch on all the band’s past albums with live versions of “I’m Waiting For The Man,” “White Light/White Heat,” “Pale Blue Eyes,” and “Sweet Jane.”

LOADED (FULLY RE-LOADED EDITION)

Track Listing

Loaded: Original Album (Remastered)

Side One

“Who Loves The Sun”

“Sweet Jane”

“Rock & Roll”

“Cool It Down”

“New Age”

Side Two

“Head Held High”

“Lonesome Cowboy Bill”

“I Found A Reason”

“Train ’round The Bend”

“Oh! Sweet Nuthin’”

Loaded: Promotional Mono Version (Remastered)

Side One

“Who Loves The Sun”

“Sweet Jane”

“Rock & Roll”

“Cool It Down”

“New Age”

Side Two

“Head Held High”

“Lonesome Cowboy Bill”

“I Found A Reason”

“Train ’round The Bend”

“Oh! Sweet Nuthin’”

Loaded: “Full-Length” Version (Remastered)

Side One

“Who Loves The Sun”

“Sweet Jane” – Full-Length Version *

“Rock & Roll” – Full-Length Version *

“Cool It Down”

“New Age” – Full-Length Version *

Side Two

“Head Held High”

“Lonesome Cowboy Bill”

“I Found A Reason”

“Train ’round The Bend”

“Oh! Sweet Nuthin’”

Loaded – “Fully Loaded” Version (Remastered)

Side One

“Ride Into The Sun” – Session Outtake *

“Ocean” – Session Outtake *

“I Love You” – Session Outtake *

“I’m Sticking With You” – Session Outtake *

“Rock & Roll” – Demo *

“Sad Song” – Demo *

Side Two

“I Found A Reason” – Demo *

“Satellite Of Love” – Demo *

“Oh Gin” – Demo *

“Walk And Talk” – Demo *

“Ocean” – Demo *

“I Love You” – Demo *

“Love Makes You Feel Ten Feet Tall” – Demo *

Side Three

“Cool It Down” – Early Version *

“Sweet Jane” – Early Version *

“Lonesome Cowboy Bill” – Early Version *

“Head Held High” – Early Version *

“Oh! Sweet Nuthin’” – Early Version *

“Who Loves The Sun” – Alternate Mix *

Side Four

“Sweet Jane” – Alternate Mix *

“Lonesome Cowboy Bill” – Alternate Mix *

“Train ’round The Bend” – Alternate Mix *

“Cool It Down” – Alternate Mix *

“Head Held High” – Alternate Mix *

“Rock & Roll” – Alternate Mix *

Live At Max’s Kansas City: Expanded Version (Remastered)

Side One

“I’m Waiting For The Man”

“White Light/White Heat”

“I’m Set Free”

“Sweet Jane”

Side Two

“Lonesome Cowboy Bill”

“New Age”

“Beginning To See The Light”

“I’ll Be Your Mirror”

Side Three

“Pale Blue Eyes”

“Candy Says”

“Sunday Morning”

“After Hours”

Side Four

“Femme Fatale”

“Some Kinda Love”

“Lonesome Cowboy Bill” – Version Two

Live At Second Fret, Philadelphia (1970)

Side One

“I’m Waiting For The Man” *

“What Goes On” *

“Cool It Down” *

Side Two

“Sweet Jane” *

“Rock & Roll” *

“Some Kinda Love” *

Side Three

“New Age” *

“Candy Says” *

“Head Held High” *

Side Four

“Train ’round The Bend” *

“Oh! Sweet Nuthin’” *

7” Singles

“Head Held High” b/w “Train ’round The Bend” – French Picture Sleeve

“Rock & Roll” b/w “Lonesome Cowboy Bill” – Cotillion Sleeve

“Sweet Jane” b/w “Rock & Roll” – German Picture Sleeve

“Who Loves The Sun” b/w “Oh! Sweet Nuthin’” – Cotillion Sleeve

* vinyl debut

If you ever thought Live At Max's was lo fi wait till you hear Live At Second Fret.

Lol.

The deluxe 45th anniversary was a bit light compared to the similar sets for the other albums, but it exists and is fine.

This one serves no real purpose apart from taking a lot of space..

the hoffman boys claim that neither of the live performances on that set has ever been issued at the right speed. (brigid polk's batteries were running low, or some such.) it's unlikely they will be here, either.

Never tested it but but Max's has always sounded too fast to me.

Me too but always figured it was just Billy rushing the tempo.

here is one mranimal from hoffman, re. correct max's speed:

I have found a short moment of amp ground loop feedback on each set on the complete 2CD retail release. I have used these short moments to find the actual speed of the performance by adjusting the speed until these feedbacks registered exactly 60hz on a hum detection filter. Of course, it only confirms the speed during these brief moments, but I’m not noticing any speed drifting elsewhere in the recordings while playing along on guitar and both sets are very close in the needed correction so I think that indicates the recorder was running at constant speed (but not the correct speed). Also, I have discovered that the right channel of the 2CD has bass guitar playing from another recording at a very low level. It’s very clearly a bass guitar during the 2nd set. It is also heard in the 1st set but more as an indistinct bass sound that is not part of the VU recording. For this reason, I have dropped the right channel and use only the left for both sets now.

Speed corrections are given as sample rate tag setting. If you adjust the sample rate tag in say Audacity (on the track, not the project) to these numbers, then the recordings will play at proper speed. Make sure the time length of the track changes or else something wasn't done right. I’m also including the percentage adjustment needed if you are using a process which goes by percentage.

Set #1: 42600 hz (or -3.46%)

Set #2: 42665 hz (or -3.3%)

No release has these recordings at the correct speed. However, I’ve never heard the 2CD promo with the rehearsal tracks (I do have the rehearsal tracks, though), but would love to track it down someday and check it out to compare speed and mastering. The Loaded 45th anniversary incomplete version of Max’s (which has also been issued standalone) has the sound in true mono so the low level bass playing from another recording is baked in and can't be eliminated by dropping a channel. I’m glad they left the 2CD in “stereo”.

god bless those hoffman lunatics

tl;dr

j/k of course I read

god bless those hoffman lunatics

otm

his method of finding the correct pitch is ingeneous because it doesn't involve the instruments (which of course could be off from true pitch).

So, if I slow my LP down 'a bit', then...