Loaded vs. American Beauty

let's be honest with ourselves, however much we prefer the Velvets there's not a single member of Yes who isn't a better musician than Yule, Morrison & Tucker all rolled into one

o no u dint

i think he's just trolling at this point

eh it's pretty obvious where that's coming from and I wouldn't really argue it - Yes are all incredibly versatile and precise in a way none of the Velvets' are. those dudes could pretty much play anything. they just had shittier ideas than the Velvets.

let's just note for the record here that J0hn is advancing the argument that STEVE HOWE was a better sideman for Lou than Doug Yule

That's not what he said (at least initially), although why couldn't you argue that Howe was a better match? I've no problem writing that Fernando Saunders was a better sideman for Lou than John Cale if by "better" I mean "has made significantly more music -- sometimes music as good as -- with Saunders."

As the guy frequently cited as the standard bearer for studio pop, I've no problem admitting I like Loaded least of the four Velvet studio records and Lou (and Cale, and Moe) has recorded better solo albums.

although why couldn't you argue that Howe was a better match

oh you could argue it, I just think you would be wrong

"The only Dead joints I've ever been able to really warm up to were Anthem of the Sun, Live Dead, and the 1st one. They really sound as though they were "searching for the sound" [to use Phil Lesh's phrase] on those, as opposed to just being sorta noodly."

you should try more albums. they really achieved something wonderful on american beauty and workingman's dead. none of their later studio albums are really "noodly". they are all about songs. good songs!

(and by later, i mean later than the ones you mentioned. i would throw europe 72 in there too, just cuz the songs are so great.)

'Wake of The Flood' might even be their best batch of songs!

I just can't abide the implication that the Velvets' third album (to say nothing of Loaded) is crap. really. you have no time for Candy Says. Or Beginning to See the Light. or What Goes On. what is wrong with you man.

naw I can get with the 3rd one OK although it kind of puts me to sleep. The songs are good (a lot of songs on Loaded are good too). But the sensibility that comes into the band with Yule, that warm-milk evenhanded stuff - it kinda puts me to sleep on the 3rd one to be honest, and by the time of Loaded it's like "hey, how can we make these songs as uninteresting as possible?" the solo album on the other hand - Howe plays great on it, Wakeman too, if I'm going to listen to laid-back versions of those songs then the guys playing 'em on the self-titled are the people I'd rather hear playing it

basically for me my Loaded animosity boils down to "I love the shit outta 'Sweet Jane' and think the version on Loaded is an insult to one of my favorite songs of all time"- even if it didn't, though, if I were just voting for the sheet music, I think the songs on American Beauty are probably better candidate-for-candidate than Loaded. American Beauty is just unbelievably strong.

Here we part company. I wasn't around in '68 or '69, but playing the eponymous album after absorbing its predecessors' impact must have been just as harrowing. I can't think of a single track from this time with "What Goes On"'s hard, endless rhythmic strum or the use of space in "Some Kinda Love" and "Candy Says." Maybe The Band came closest to integrating gospel and folk like the Velvets did in "I'm Set Free," but I haven't heard it. The album's only dud is the one track in which they try to repeat the hijinks of the Cale albums ("Murder Mystery").

^^^what he said

What Goes On is proto-krautrock, it doesn't quite have the motorik beat but the rhythm has that sense of constant forward motion

Is the Lou Reed s/t worth checking out? I actually wouldn't mind hearing Howe and Wakeman on VU-style songs.

(Hm, I never thought of the s/t VU album as being as innovative as you're claiming but counter-examples don't spring to mind TBH. Interesting. Will think about this.)

it's pretty shitty imho, barring a couple tracks (I mentioned upthread that Wild Child is the standout)

I agree that it's proto-Krautrock, the thing is I'm kinda not Mr. Krautrock (though I gotta admit there was one winter/spring when the 3rd album version What Goes On was completely blowing my mind at least once a week). And I love the rhythms in "Some Kinda Love" for sure. But I'm a White Light/White Heat dude. I like my Velvets harsh. Lou solo I think just does the laid-back stuff better, and to much greater effect - I would rather hear his gentle songs played by, yeah, dudes like Steve Howe & Rick Wakeman. I prefer Lou Reed & A Cast of Musos to most Velvets, to be honest - like, the Saunders/Quine band, that right there is some of the most enjoyable stuff he ever made - even when the tunes aren't there (as imo they often aren't), those guys keep me listening. Whereas, like, you know how everybody loves "Pale Blue Eyes"? I have always kinda hated "Pale Blue Eyes." I could dig it if there were something going on besides Lou getting to fabbo punchlines like "down for you is up," but there isn't.

Sundar I'd guess you'd enjoy the self-titled like I do; I was unaware that there was any animosity toward it.

(also, I'm not trolling, really - it's just that for about three years in high school, Lou Reed was pretty much God for me, and my opinions about my Lou Reed collection [something like 40 LPs counting bootlegs iirc] were kind of What I Did. It came as something of a surprise to me to learn years later that what most people liked about Lou was his wimped-out side instead of, y'know, Steve Hunter. That's right Steve Hunter. The intro to the Rock n Roll Animal "Sweet Jane" you guys probably all hate? I love it to pieces.)

I'm not really an either/or guy when it comes to Lou - gentle Lou is great/touching/funny, angry confrontational Lou is great/scary/funny

I love Rock n Roll Animal! Still the best official live version "Heroin" preserved.

prefer Lou Reed & A Cast of Musos to most Velvets, to be honest - like, the Saunders/Quine band, that right there is some of the most enjoyable stuff he ever made - even when the tunes aren't there (as imo they often aren't), those guys keep me listening.

Haven't we fought about this for years? I thought the Quine-Saunders stuff made you ill or something.

I mean, I'm the kind of guy who likes to drive around blasting Take No Prisoners in the middle of the night

xp

you think i hate it?

x-post

if dick wagner and steve hunter had been on every lou reed album i would own every lou reed album.

Haven't we fought about this for years? I thought the Quine-Saunders stuff made you ill or something.

I think the songs really get pretty weak after The Blue Mask - especially on Legendary Hearts, which I know you rep for. (I love "Bottoming Out" a lot but I just can't get down with the writer who had once meant a great deal to me leading off with "Legendary hearts/tearing us apart.") But I could listen to that band play all day - I saw that lineup on the New Sensations tour. It was so goddamn awesome. He opened with "Sweet Jane." I thought I was going to die.

I got a soft spot for that intro too. A used copy of Rock N Roll Animal was my intro to anything Lou. Weird place to start, but made everything else seem pretty stripped down.

basically tho really I mean given how extremely passionate I was about Lou being The Greatest Ever when I was a sprout, it's unsurprising that even the stuff I praise now I couch in damning terms - my love of his stuff at the peak of my fandom was like total hero worship

whereas I didn't give American Beauty a chance until like 2005 I think, maybe 2006, and what did I find, when I finally stopped being "eww ick Deadheads"?

1. "Box of Rain" (Robert Hunter, Phil Lesh) – 5:18
2. "Friend of the Devil" (Jerry Garcia, John Dawson, Hunter) – 3:24
3. "Sugar Magnolia" (Bob Weir, Hunter) – 3:19
4. "Operator" (Ron McKernan) – 2:25
5. "Candyman" (Garcia, Hunter) – 6:14
6. "Ripple" (Garcia, Hunter) – 4:09
7. "Brokedown Palace" (Garcia, Hunter) – 4:09
8. "Till the Morning Comes" (Garcia, Hunter) – 3:08
9. "Attics of My Life" (Garcia, Hunter) – 5:12
10. "Truckin'" (Garcia, Lesh, Weir, Hunter) – 5:03

Just unbelievable. Loaded can't even suit up for this match.

here we go. loving this but more Dead vs Velvets talk pls

Legendary Hearts is the weakest of the trio, no question. My favorite of that era is New Sensations, which gets my vote for worst production of a great album.

stacking up the 10 songs on each, track by track in the order they appeared...

"Who Loves the Sun" vs "Box of Rain"
"Sweet Jane" vs. "Friend of the Devil"
"Rock & Roll" vs. "Sugar Magnolia"
"Cool It Down" vs. "Operator"
"New Age" vs. "Candyman"
"Head Held High" vs. "Ripple"
"Lonesome Cowboy Bill" vs. "Brokedown Palace"
"I Found a Reason" vs. "Till the Morning Comes"
"Train Round the Bend" vs. "Attics of My Life"
"Oh! Sweet Nuthin'" vs. "Truckin'"

round one: who loves the sun vs. box of rain -

sun song vs. rain song. hippies and their weather. both kind of annoying. draw?

the only lou albums i feel like i ALWAYS have to have on the shelf at this late date: berlin, the bells, sally can't dance, blue mask, rock & roll animal, and lou reed live. i need a copy of the first album though. i like those songs and i like the album. had one at some point. (i mean, i do like lots of other stuff too. was just listening to coney island baby a couple weeks ago. but if i really had to pick essentials, those would be mine. today, anyway.)

big xpost:

1. "Box of Rain" (Robert Hunter, Phil Lesh) – 5:18
2. "Friend of the Devil" (Jerry Garcia, John Dawson, Hunter) – 3:24
3. "Sugar Magnolia" (Bob Weir, Hunter) – 3:19

^^^ I mean as an opening salvo that is pretty unfuckwithable - "Box of Rain" is like all the Dead's best qualities of the era in one song, the navel-gazing of the lyric really gets at a pained sort of longing that's really effective; "Friend of the Devil," shit, the sheer number of bluegrass pickers who can do that one on call oughta tell you something, i.e., that it's a solid jam; and "Sugar Magnolia" is just fantastic, really the best studio realization of the Europe '72 vibe imo. "Operator" gives me the fucking creeps, the vocal just bugs me, but this is a personal reaction - the band's still playing is crackling & solid, a real joy. "Candyman" is also creepy as fuck, frankly it'd sound in place on a Velvets album only as a character study of a sleazebag. But then "Ripple"? Man, even the most ardent Dead-hater has to rep for "Ripple," that's all-time American songbook right there - just gorgeous, perfect tune. I'm not a huge fan of "Brokedown Palace," feel like it's trying too hard, but it's decent. "Attics of My Life" you can keep. "Til the Morning Comes" is a decent jam though it's a harbinger of bad stuff to come circa Shakedown Street. And "Truckin'," again, all-time classic tune.

Whereas the Velvets third has by my reckoning 3 all-time classics and a bunch of other stuff that's pleasant enough, and Lou really starting to feel like A Poet.

berlin, the bells, sally can't dance, blue mask, rock & roll animal, and lou reed live

haha wow apart from Berlin these are all the ones I DON'T want to own

Ha, as I feared, I kind of think Lou Reed is the worst thing about most of this stuff. "Berlin" and "I Love You" are really nice despite him.

(I'm not even a Dead fan, and I at least was a big VU fan, but I'd probably take "Ripple" over all of Loaded.)

xposts Ha!

if we're going track vs. track, box of rain smokes who loves the sun imo but as a Loaded hater I'm not really qualified to be a ref with Loaded vs. An Album I Consider Awesome

my favorite Lou solos are Coney Island Baby, the first album, Rock and Roll Animal, and yeah Sally Can't Dance (so marvelously weird & fucked-up)

I kind of can't believe that the Dead never covered Sweet Jane. I can totally hear Bob singing the verses and Jerry singing the chorus. I'm not saying that this would necessarily be good.

I thought it would be hard to picture the reverse but a lot of these would sound good done by the VU.

i like the ragged quality of box of rain more than the cutesiness of who loves the sun but the vocal on box bugs me

Except for "The Kids" (which in the right mood will make me cry), I can't stand Berlin, which for all its polish and expense is more cynical and "decadent" than SCD.

Coney Island Baby is the one imho

agree ripple smokes everything on loaded though

xpost to Shakey: we agree on the supremacy of Coney Island Baby!

if loaded were some unknown band's debut and nobody bought it and the band died a week after it was released then i think it would still be a big deal with nerds and people would create a church for it. it's that kind of album. i just look at it as a rilly rilly good rock record! i love the sounds and the production and the songs are way cool. its playful. god knows i listen to enough bands from the 70's that kinda sorta remind me of loaded.

but how does it stack up to American Beauty in yr books, Scott?

xpost to Shakey: we agree on the supremacy of Coney Island Baby!

lol peace bruv

I could rhapsodize endlessly about that record

for me it is the only Lou record I would call perfect. I think it was the third or fourth one I heard and it completely changed my life. I would vote for it over American Beauty & over probably most other albums - I don't keep an all-time top ten list, but it'd be on there for sure - always sounds fresh & great to me. Definitive "She's My Best Friend," I'm extremely glad that that was the first place I heard it since the VU treatment of it, to me, doesn't do it justice.

Loaded on the other hand...not even close.

"but how does it stack up to American Beauty in yr books, Scott?"

oh jeez i dunno i like them both a ton. but american beauty is kinda like the great american novel and loaded is more like a cool grove press book that you steal from your parent's shelf. they are both very american though. and cool it down fills me with joy. pure joy. as much as i love lou and vu though, man, hunter/garcia is seriously the second coming of george and ira as far as i'm concerned. their contribution to the american songbook is pretty friggin' huge for a couple of drug-addled hippies.

even the most ardent Dead-hater has to rep for "Ripple,"

Ah fuck you got me.

Really!

surprised no one's brought up workingman's dead, which came out in '70 (june i think?) before either of these other two, and is way mellower

I have no idea but you'd have to head all the way down to Shakedown Street to find a Dead album that's not as good as Loaded

@ Scott: I hear what yr saying. I will revisit the Dead LPs you mention. I'm always open to having my head turned around.

I always thought "Lonesome Cowboy Bill" always kind of sounded a bit like the Dead. I could definitely hear the Dead playing it and Garcia singing it in my mind.

yes but he is a terrible singer - once you like the dead, jerry's a great vocalist, too, "vocalist" really only means "I buy into some/all of his schtick & have decided I like him" imo

I'm sorry, but I have to cut Phil all kinds of slack for "Box of Rain" since he wrote it during the time he was visiting his father who was dying of cancer. It resonates with me because I was doing the same thing for six months before I lost my father to cancer last July (not writing a song just visiting my dying father in the hospital). Now, all kinds of shit strikes me emotionally that I would have been able to laugh at or shrug off before my father passed away, and "Box of Rain" is one of those things.

bob weir's live version of "good lovin" where he was wearing pedophile eyeglasses and a safari shirt and shorts on some live at winterland thing i saw on PBS was the most embarrassing live performance i have ever seen.

u CANNOT knock bob's style! tempted to SB

http://www.stevehowe.com/images/news/news-TrioTravelling.jpg
thought everyone should know that Steve Howe has a new album out. heard there's a stellar version of "(San Francisco) Giants Under the Sun".

just heard loaded for the first time and WOW ive never heard the velvets like this before

'i found a reason' is pretty much a grateful dead song, so i tip my lol to the OP

classic thread — here's this thing I just put together:
https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2020/08/10/unearthed-vol-11-unloaded/

Despite all the amputations,

lol

stoked to put this on right now, thanks for sharing

moe singing on "rock & roll" !!!

haha, yeah i love that version

"lonesome cowboy bill" intro:

"Oh yeah I wrote it, buuueeeegggghhhhhhhhhhh ... it's pretty new."

actually Jim Carroll blabbing into the tape there (from the max's LP)

oh that's right !

I heard both american beauty and workingman’s deadso many damn times growing up that for a long time afterwards I just couldn’t really *hear* them, iykwim. WD has thawed for me but I just never have any desire to listen to AB, the well worn grooves are too deep or something

loaded was the last VU album I got and yeah the other three had such distinct sonic/aesthetic identities that it was kind of a bummer that the fourth one was just a plain ol 1970 laid back rock record but it still jams, like it better these days but I’m pretty sure “who loves the sun” can take a hike

I think AB is definitely the better record but nothing on loaded makes my skin crawl like “candy man”

weird comparison, even if i like both albums.

there's nothing as potent as "box of rain" on loaded, but if we're picking which one we prefer, i'd probably go with loaded. hard choice though.

I've gotten to know American Beauty better since I opted for Loaded on the strength of three songs. There are more songs on American Beauty that I like...but it'd still be impossible to opt for it over those three songs (the two most obvious + "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'").