Lou probably did as well, depending on what medication he was on at the time
― Charles Kennedy Jumped Up, He Called 'Oh No'. (Tom D.), Thursday, 29 March 2012 17:25 (twelve years ago) link
Put garbage on your shoulder.
― Dancing with Mr. T (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Thursday, 29 March 2012 17:30 (twelve years ago) link
"Some Kinda Love" = 4 mins of straight garbage
gtfo that song is awesome!
― tempestuous alaskan nites! (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Thursday, 29 March 2012 17:31 (twelve years ago) link
yes it is one of the best songs.
― tylerw, Thursday, 29 March 2012 17:32 (twelve years ago) link
some kinda troll
― diamanda ram dass (Edward III), Thursday, 29 March 2012 17:34 (twelve years ago) link
tyler between 3rd album & debut which do you take?
― tempestuous alaskan nites! (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Thursday, 29 March 2012 17:34 (twelve years ago) link
xp I mean third album is not awful but I feel like SKl right on top of Pale Blue Eyes kills momentum dead; What Goes on is top 10 VU for me, and the Jesus => That's the Story of My Life sequence is perfect, but I mean banana album is unfuckwithable, an album that has room for "Black Angel's Death Song"/"European Son" along with "Sunday Morning" and "Femme Fatale" is such a better candidate for alltimedom imo
― dies irate (loves laboured breathing), Thursday, 29 March 2012 17:35 (twelve years ago) link
not that you asked me, but I'll take the 3rd. I have no use for Black Angel's Death Song or European Son, really.
― You big bully, why are you hitting that little bully? (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 29 March 2012 17:36 (twelve years ago) link
yeah SKL is way great
Just re-listened to Rock N Roll. Lou does such a funny Dylan impression.
― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Thursday, 29 March 2012 17:36 (twelve years ago) link
xps probably the debut because of the all-important cale-iness, but it's neck and neck really.
― tylerw, Thursday, 29 March 2012 17:36 (twelve years ago) link
The production's all kinds of wrong on this one and it's got more filler than the others.
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 29 March 2012 17:37 (twelve years ago) link
"Some Kinda Love" may have more good lines than any song not written by Holland-Dozier-Holland.
^^^otmoff topic kinda, but everyone should watch this thinghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Et1ceU09_c
― tylerw, Thursday, 29 March 2012 17:38 (twelve years ago) link
BTW It's fun to sing VU songs like you are Bob Dylan.
"Baby be gooood do whatcha shouuuuld"
― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Thursday, 29 March 2012 17:38 (twelve years ago) link
"Rock & Roll" is one of the reasons I don't rate Loaded very highly. It was the first VU song I ever heard (used to be on classic rock radio where I grew up) and it bugged me. Still bugs me. I skip it every time if I can get to the controls.
― EZ Snappin, Thursday, 29 March 2012 17:39 (twelve years ago) link
much better than the execrable Dylan impression Lou attempts on "Prominent Men"
― You big bully, why are you hitting that little bully? (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 29 March 2012 17:39 (twelve years ago) link
true story: "Some Kinda Love" helped me come out.
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 29 March 2012 17:39 (twelve years ago) link
Lou's cover of "Foot of Pride" rules though.
I might be well-served to read the lyrics before spouting off in here, sorry guyz
― dies irate (loves laboured breathing), Thursday, 29 March 2012 17:44 (twelve years ago) link
that is way cool imo
banana album is unfuckwithable
it would be impossible to overstate how huge lou reed/the velvets were for me in high school & the first year after high school but I always felt like the 1st album (though loved/love it) was a little over its head. I don't really love 'Black Angel's Death Song' or 'Femme Fatale' at all. Or honestly "there she goes again" tbqf
― tempestuous alaskan nites! (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Thursday, 29 March 2012 17:46 (twelve years ago) link
yeah I love all of those; if I had to pick a song to not love wholeheartedly it's probably "Run Run Run"
― dies irate (loves laboured breathing), Thursday, 29 March 2012 17:52 (twelve years ago) link
Femme Fatale was the first song I figured out vocal harmonies for. Not that they're complicated... when I was 14 or 15 I sat down with two boomboxes, recorded one vocal line on one boombox, then played that back while singing along and pressing record on the other boombox, then kept doing that until I had all the parts together. Blew my little mind.
xp
― You big bully, why are you hitting that little bully? (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 29 March 2012 17:52 (twelve years ago) link
yeah femme fatale is soooo pretty. the guitars on that song.
― tylerw, Thursday, 29 March 2012 17:54 (twelve years ago) link
The first album, particularly "Waiting for the Man," still carries the most inscrutable resonance with me - probably just because I discovered it first.
― Träumerei, Thursday, 29 March 2012 17:55 (twelve years ago) link
also: just listened to Some Kinda Love for the first time in a long time and it still seems to me the one song on the third album that misses Cale the most, but as I said before, I probably am missing the point wrt the lyrics and was excessively rash with my entrance into this thread
― dies irate (loves laboured breathing), Thursday, 29 March 2012 17:57 (twelve years ago) link
1st was hugely influential to me but for listening pleasure nothing beats 3rd
some of the greatest songs ever written rubbing shoulders, material is varied but never feels cobbled together like the first 2, more unified somehow
― diamanda ram dass (Edward III), Thursday, 29 March 2012 17:58 (twelve years ago) link
are you guys even, like, fans of this band??
― flopson, Thursday, 29 March 2012 18:00 (twelve years ago) link
maybe not..?
― dies irate (loves laboured breathing), Thursday, 29 March 2012 18:01 (twelve years ago) link
I'll never forget hearing "Sunday Morning" the night after that robo trip, it was the most gentle, celestially beautiful song I will ever hear in this life or the next.
― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Thursday, 29 March 2012 18:02 (twelve years ago) link
My 6+ hours of "Sister Ray" bootleg performances say maybe just a bit.
― EZ Snappin, Thursday, 29 March 2012 18:02 (twelve years ago) link
I don't really love 'Black Angel's Death Song' or 'Femme Fatale' at all. Or honestly "there she goes again" tbqf
"Rock & Roll" is one of the reasons I don't rate Loaded very highly.
3rd and 4th ones are boring... and responsible for more bad music than anything this side of Led Zeppelin.
if i could keep Sister Ray i would pretty happily say goodbye to WL/WH
worst day of my life was the 3rd time I went to jail. 2nd worst day was when I heard the Loaded version of "Sweet Jane"
each one has songs i love and songs i very nearly hate.
― flopson, Thursday, 29 March 2012 18:04 (twelve years ago) link
wtf!
"dudes you guys gotta hear this band, they're gonna change music as we know it"(puts on 'lonesome cowboy bill')
― iatee, Thursday, March 29, 2012 12:50 AM (13 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
lol
― flopson, Thursday, 29 March 2012 18:06 (twelve years ago) link
suggest banana
― tylerw, Thursday, 29 March 2012 18:06 (twelve years ago) link
The only VU song that even mildly annoys me is "The Murder Mystery," and I think I'd like it a lot more if it was shorter. Love everything else (wait, except for that horrible first disc of the box).
― Dancing with Mr. T (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Thursday, 29 March 2012 18:07 (twelve years ago) link
xp hahaha tylerw
but seriously folks it's ok if people don't want to put the VU on a pedestal. still my fave band though!
― tylerw, Thursday, 29 March 2012 18:08 (twelve years ago) link
I'll stan for all their albums. whichever one is being slagged off at any given time is the one I'll defend
― You big bully, why are you hitting that little bully? (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 29 March 2012 18:11 (twelve years ago) link
i listened to white light/white heat THIS MORNING
― flopson, Thursday, 29 March 2012 18:13 (twelve years ago) link
I started with Loaded too, because the Rolling Stone record guide rated it so highly, and the rest were out of print (this was just months before the 80s reissues). Total head scratcher as to why this band was considered so radical, and I was surprised I knew that "Rock 'n' Roll" song; I figured they'd be so crazy and destructive, it would never show up on AOR. My main reference point for crazy and destructive were 1966 Who bootlegs and Never Mind the Bollocks.
Then the reissues happend, so I went straight to WL/WH, and was much more satisfying, but I thought "Sister Ray" was plodding and boring- I was expecting that anything described as that assaultive would have to have some tempo to it. Then I got Nico, and really started to understand the appeal. "European Son" was pretty much what I *thought* "Sister Ray" was going to sound like, based on the RS description.
Then I got the third, expecting that it would be too reserved, and it quickly ended up my favorite. "Murder Mystery" felt like payoff for my young adolescent efforts at listening to "Revolution #9", an experimental collage I actually enjoyed!
It was so much easier to read about a band than hear them then. I didn't have great access to record shops, and other founding punk documents like Funhouse and Black Generation were out of print too. So I'd read about this stuff for a year before I could track down a copy.
It's a good reminder of how hard it is to write about music, and how age and context play into that. I can see if I was of Dave Marsh's generation, and lived through 60s rock, where VU were on the periphery, Loaded would have seemed like a vindication of their experimental work: they were completely capable of make solid singer/songwriter oriented rock, they just chose to push boundaries. Which is very much in line with the old Rolling Stone point-of-view, that weird puritanical streak that discounted bands that were intentionally crude or ugly or not everyday Joes. Meagre star ratings for you, Black Sabbath, X, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Lydia Lunch.
― bendy, Thursday, 29 March 2012 18:14 (twelve years ago) link
yeah I don't think there's a bad song on the first 3 albums (or vu), a few lol filler songs on this one so it's the 'worst', I don't really have to rank the others, they are all good
― iatee, Thursday, 29 March 2012 18:15 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.mindovermetal.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Loutallica-Lulu.jpg
― markers, Thursday, 29 March 2012 18:17 (twelve years ago) link
I could never figure out who sings "Sunday Morning"--sounds like--the Ghost of Future Lou, just back from all tomorrow's parties? "my brother Doug" 's audition? It should be just a bit unsettling, given the song, and so it is. I'll check out Fully Loaded, but never had a prob w the first version. True pop art, and "Head Held High"' even sounds like a Johnny Winter gay/gabba gabba anthem, early 70s vocal raunch and all. Way back when Creem did a VU commemoration, they quoted Lou: "That's a lot of people's favorite, and I'm not even on it!"
― dow, Thursday, 29 March 2012 18:17 (twelve years ago) link
if I had to do it by which songs I listen to most 'vu' would prob win
― iatee, Thursday, 29 March 2012 18:17 (twelve years ago) link
admittedly Lou does not sound like Lou on Sunday Morning
― dies irate (loves laboured breathing), Thursday, 29 March 2012 18:19 (twelve years ago) link
― flopson, Thursday, March 29, 2012 2:00 PM (15 minutes ago)
I think part of the reason they're so widely loved is because of their polarizing versatility, so it's not surprising that diff ppl like diff aspects of what they do. I mean we're not talking about creedence clearwater revival here.
― diamanda ram dass (Edward III), Thursday, 29 March 2012 18:19 (twelve years ago) link
Peel Slowly And See is also great (despite or including some ridiculous early demos/rehearsals)
― dow, Thursday, 29 March 2012 18:21 (twelve years ago) link
My main reference point for crazy and destructive were 1966 Who bootlegs and Never Mind the Bollocks.
There's a quote somewhere from Cale or Reed...not long after the Velvets formed, Cale went to Wales and came back with some new singles, "Anyway Anyhow Anywhere" and the Small Faces' "Whatcha Gonna Do About It" among them. Reed said to Cale (or vice-versa) something to the effect of, "We gotta put a record out soon, or everyone's gonna think we ripped these bands off!"
― Dancing with Mr. T (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Thursday, 29 March 2012 18:21 (twelve years ago) link
xxp i think people who don't like [velvet underground song] are fronting & if they just jammed it in the right mood they'd come around
― flopson, Thursday, 29 March 2012 18:22 (twelve years ago) link
great post bendy - I think one's own VU sequence narrative is maybe super important to how one ranks the albums. I became a big fan of Lou Reed in a vacuum, I had no outside information on him other than the records I could find (I was 13) which were Transformer & Coney Island Baby & Rock and Roll Animal. Thought he was the greatest thing ever. Heard about the Velvet Underground and for what seemed like an eternity (was probably 1-2 months, lol teenagers) I was looking for somebody who owned the records so I could hear them. Finally got to a friend's house and heard the first one, liked it, but it was when a friend brought White Light back from France that I really felt floored. Third album took another year to hear (after the same friend went back to France with his family, he brought me a copy). At this point I was pretty excited to hear Loaded, I knew its hits and assumed that the album versions would be great. Instead they sounded - breezy, airy. That was not what I wanted from "Sweet Jane" - I liked the Rock and Roll Animal version. I know that's not everybody's style of "Sweet Jane" but I liked & like crunchy riffy 70s shit like Steve Hunter. I bought Steve Hunter solo albums. And I still prefer Lou & Some Guys Who Can Really Play to Lou And His Artist Friends Who're Also Musicians, that's just me.
― tempestuous alaskan nites! (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Thursday, 29 March 2012 18:22 (twelve years ago) link