Velvet Underground - Loaded - The Poll

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.

if they replaced the few weaker Loaded tracks with Ocean, She's My Best Friend and Stephanie Says... omg

this album can't fuck with toys in the attic or draw the line

but it's good.

voting new age

i do love loaded, esp the "hits"

but yeah i think VU was a band that was better when they sort of embraced the fact that they didn't completely work as a conventional rock band

this is worth looking at -- the VU's 1969 recordings (released on VU and Another View) but w/o the Cale-era tracks: http://olivier.landemaine.free.fr/vu/lostalbum/lostalbum.html

Yeah, that's a nice listing..

Also:

Perfectionists will have to pick up the introductory coda to Foggy Notion that appears only on the vinyl version of the VU album.

VERY IMPORTANT ... 20 seconds of guitar noodling.

Went with "Sweet Nuthin'" but "Head Held High" features one of my favorite vocals ever.

wtf is an "introductory coda" - isn't a coda by definition at the END?

they broke all the rules, man.

No one repping for "I Found a Reason" yet

I like the alternate version better, from the Fully Loaded reissue.

i like 'em both -- i like that they re-imagined the song for Loaded.
one thing that i think is a missed opportunity is having a real studio version of "Move Right In" (which appears in an instrumental version on Another View). The live versions from early 69 are monstrous. It' sjust a rave-up, sure, but it's awesome.

yeah the guitar breaks on that are insane

er no wait I'm thinking of "Guess I'm Falling in Love"... "I'm Gonna Move Right In" is kinda boring

the instrumental's a bit of a snooze, but it's pretty sweet on bootlegs.

Guess I'm Falling in Love - the instro version from VU = best Velvet Underground rocking out-type song.

Another View, I mean

My theory was that they made that instrumental version as a backing track for their appearance on the (now lost, apparently) Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell show.

yeah, Morrison's solos on that are "louie louie" level playing. just pure rock n roll goodness.

hell yeah - Moe and Sterl are thunder and lightning on that motherfucker.

the Fully Loaded Edition is so great -- the doo wop intro to Rock and Roll, Satellite of Love, Sad Song ... Lots of cool stuff.

Is all that stuff on Peel Slowly?

some of it, some of it ain't. i think most of it is actually different takes than peel slowly, though some of the differences are marginal ... things like -- no bass!

I voted "Sweet Jane" and it's not really close but I like this album a lot. I wouldn't say I love it, though: when I read the red Rolling Stone guide in the early 90s this was supposed to be "the one" iirc but it's never really stood out to me as something to keep coming back to. But I've been really getting into bootlegs of the band in 1969 and the best of these songs ("Sweet Jane", "New Age", "Rock & Roll") stand out on those excellent performances...like, I think I get what they were going for on Loaded more clearly on those live performances (and oh the "Ocean" on Live 1969 is heavenly, esp. Yule's organ playing, as we talked about on another thread recently).

A lot of it isn't, actually. (On Peel Slowly, that is)

Particularly the versions with the edited out bits of "Sweet Jane" and "New Age" back in, if I recall..

full versions of Sweet Jane and New Age are on Peel Slowly

OK, well there are many alternate versions of tracks on the "fully loaded" edition.

"Cool It Down" is terrific.

walk it and talk it is another gem from the Fully Loaded edition ... Songs were just pouring out of Lou at this point, weren't they?

I'll prob vote for OSN, tho I love pretty much every song here except "Lonesome Cowboy Bill"

<3<3 Lou's campy monologue in "I Found a Reason"

and I've walked down life's lonely highways, hand in hand with myself = always gets a chuckle from me

There isn't a single song from this album I'd pick over another. So I clicked on 'who loves the sun' and pressed the arrow down with my eyes closed to randomize my vote. Voted for 'New Age'.

you wouldn't pick "Sweet Jane" over "Lonesome Cowboy Bill"? really now?

I went for Rock & Roll, it's probably my second favourite song of theirs just behind I'm Beginning to see the Light.

This is the album of theirs I seem to go back to the most these days.

i voted rock and roll too. just think they knocked it out of the park with that recording. exciting every time I hear it. It is funny, though, I wonder what would've happened if Lou had stuck it out for a little longer and toured with the VU behind this record? Seems like eiher Sweet Jane or Rock and Roll would've been a real hit. Maybe?

One thing I know for sure: Lou Reed has never sung better than he does on this record.

Eh – he sounds lovely on the third album's quiet tracks; and his latter-day talk-singing is fully realized on The Blue Mask.

"rock n' roll" is possibly my favourite pop rock song of all time, so that, but "who loves the sun" is also maybe my favourite album openner ever, "o sweet nuthin" my favourite neverending chorus jam, etc. such an amazing album.

I wonder how this record would have been with Moe.
I read a Doug Yule interview where he says she only took off 8 weeks from the band for her kid's birth - you'd think they could have NOT picked that precise time to make a record.

I wonder how this record would have been with Moe.

The 1993 live version of "Sweet Jane" with Moe and Cale is fabulous.

it'd sound pretty different, that's for sure.
one crazy thing about the VU that you get from reading that Unterberger book is how haphazard everything was, especially regarding band members. Starting with Moe, actually! But the hiring of Doug Yule seems lackadaisical as well -- they lucked out with him.

Ugh Yule more like

^^^I hate you

j/k have a coconut

i pity the fule who hates doug yule

I take more umbrage with his brother, the drummer.

ha, yeah, billy is kind of not so good on the max's album ... so many fills! but he was only 17 or something at the time.

Doug Yule - the kind of guy to invite his 17 year old brother to play with one of the best bands of all time

good lookin out for the legacy Doug

apparently money was tight and they didn't have to pay him

yeah Lou was always about preserving his legacy amirite

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