![]() with White Light/White Heat on 2-for-1 2CD on Augin France (Universal, 531 867).Velvet Underground's album cover featuring the banana design by Andy Warhol.2CD on Jin the US (Polydor, 589 588/624) with stereo & mono versions and bonus tracks. Re-packaged on expanded, remastered 2CD and ltd.ed.Re-released on remastered compact disc in 1997 in the US (Mobile Fidelity, UDCD-695) and in Japan (Polydor, UICY-2334).Re-released on remastered compact disc on in Europe (Universal, 531 250).Re-issued on compact disc and cassette in the US (Verve, 823 290).Re-released on yellow vinyl in the US (Verve, V6-5008).Re-issued on elpee in August 1983 in the UK (Polydor, SPELP-20) and in Germany (Polydor, 849 144).Re-issued on elpee in the US (Verve, V6-5008), in Germany (Polydor, 2459 358), Japan (Verve, 23MM-1091) and the Netherlands (Verve, 2485 118). ![]() ![]() Released on mono & stereo elpee on Main the US (Verve, V/V6-5008). The PicturesĬover painting by Andy Warhol. Hollywood director of engineering: Val Valentin. Produced by Andy Warhol except A1 by Tom Wilson edited and remixed under the supervision of Tom Wilson by Gene Radice and David Greene recording engineered Omi Haden – T.T.G. John Cale (electric viola, piano, bass guitar), Sterling Morrison (rhythm guitar, bass guitar), Nico (chanteuse), Lou Reed (lead guitar, ostrich guitar, vocal), Maureen Tucker (percussion). Tracks A1-A11 are the original stereo versions B1-B11 are the original mono versions. I’ll Be Your Mirror (mono single version) All arrangements by The Velvet Underground.ī13. European Son To Delmore Schwartz (Lou Reed/John Cale/Sterling Morrison/Maureen Tucker) (no track time listed on original elpee)Īll songs written by Lou Reed unless noted. The Black Angels Death Song (Lou Reed/John Cale) (3:10)ī5. Or in the music of The Doors, since they kind of kicked off the whole scene. They never made another one quite like it, although you can hear some of the same ideas in the band’s later work and, to a lesser extent, in the solo music of Nico. It’s one of the most important from the 70s and 80s. Velvet Underground & Nico isn’t simply one of the most important records from the 60s. Personally, I would have preferred to hear Nico take the lead on Sunday Morning, or the band to explore The Black Angel’s Death Song more deeply, but I’m really inventing flaws that don’t exist. For a highly experimental record, it’s a nearly perfect one. You can could write a book about this record and still miss some important nuance: the deconstruction of the Beach Boys on Run, Run, Run and its role in the coastal culture wars, Lou Reed’s blasé imagery of violence over the years ( There She Goes Again), the death of the lead singer during “Heroin,” etc. It would take years for the full effect of the Velvet Underground to reach the mainstream in the form of the popular punk/alternative movement of the late 80s. Upon its release, the album’s shockwaves extended only to a small cadre of saboteurs and iconoclasts. Fifty years later, it’s still shocking to hear this music. The unblinking intensity of Venus in Furs, the harrowing urban storytelling of Heroin and I’m Waiting for the Man, the European art-film aesthetics of All Tomorrow’s Parties and the sonic experimentation of European Son mixed with mainstream pop music like oil and water. But you couldn’t listen to this record without understanding that the very definition of music had been inalterably revised. You could look at Andy Warhol’s soup can and question whether it was really art. There isn’t a single song on here that isn’t important, powerful and prescient. The Velvet Underground & Nico is rightly regarded as a masterpiece of American rock music. And in Andy Warhol’s New York pop factory, they were rejecting the conventional definition of art to find beauty in the unbeautiful. In England, they were re-defining music as popular art. In California, they were rejecting the aristocracy of art. The musical revolution of the late 1960s looked more like individual battles being fought by pockets of resistance. Kronomyth 1.0: All hail the new banana republic. Imagine if Bob Dylan fronted The Doors but did as many drugs as Jim Morrison.
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