Best Member Of The Velvet Underground

He was a tugboat captain AND he read big fat Victorian novels.

For a second I thought the Rachel referred to upthread was Lou Reed's onetime paramour.

I seem to recall that Tom's thread on Lou Reed vs. John Cale was the first "Taking Sides" thread on ILM.

i think John's pretty OTM here, it's gotta be Lou.

I don't have strong feelings here, but have to wonder if The Velvet Underground would have been "The Velvet Underground" i.e. legendary blah blah blah's if they'd started with the 3rd album (much as I wonder same about Sonic Youth/Daydream Nation, Pavement/Crooked Rain, etc.)

My gut feeling is that they might have been a nice find for record collectors, but wouldn't have anywhere near the same cultural/critical cachet. So, um, John Cale, given my understanding of who was responsible for what. Lou = better songwriter, leader of the group, quotable man about town, prime mover, etc., but that's not why they assumed the spot they occupy.

Although, along those lines, maybe Andy Warhol is the real answer.

lou's penis.

Leave LJ out of this!

Mark R: yes it was! Though that was a solo work qn as well as a VU one.

John D's comments get to the nub of why I chose this topic for this poll: they're an interesting band to ask it about cos I think there's a real desire, which goes beyond contrarianism, to try and find reasons not to pick Lou Reed despite his factually enormous contribution. This desire probably linked to him being a dick to the other members, or maybe just because he's a prickly character anyway.

(For instance I voted Cale, on the - to my mind not unreasonable - grounds that I don't actually care about the VU and I love several of JC's solo records).

dlp901 otm, although:

Lou = better songwriter

I think solo careers attest to the opposite.

I went through the thought process Tom describes and decided I had to vote for Lou after all.

i really love what cale did with his viola in the beginning but when he gets into opera singer mode like on most of his albums i prefer my cool nasal reed a million times. i understand the idea of the poll now. but somehow it seems mental not to vote for lou reed.

I'm not saying people should vote for Lou Reed! Or maybe I'm saying that they *should* but I kind of hope they don't.

The most interesting thing about polls is what people want to happen in them not what does.

well the way the poll is phrased is telling - its "Best", not "most influential", "most important", "most critical"... its more like picking a favorite. That being said, there are definitely a lot of non-personality-related reasons not to pick Lou, some of which have already been touched on. J0hnD emphasizes his songcraft but there's plenty of other creative areas where Lou fails to be all that inspiring - vocally a lot of his singing sucks, and I think Lou gets a pass on his lyrics a lot (like when he just relies on repeating names or stock phrases or comes up with a bunch of stupid cut-up nonsense that doesn't really amount to anything as on "Andy's Chest"). Sterling gets the better guitar parts, Cale is conventionally credited with the more inventive avant-garde/noise elements, Mo's drumming is definitely idiosyncratic and endearing in its simplicity... these are all legitimate aesthetic criteria, independent of what a dick Lou was or was not to various people.

and yeah Tim OTM re: solo output

Lou Reed proved, both in Velvets and later during his solo career, that he can write a great song whenever he wants to. So there's my obvious pick.

John Cale is just as obviously the worst member.

we all know what you think, no need to actually tell us

perfect day & satellite of love are alone enough to cancel out a lifetime of lr's dickishness. and as far as vu is concerned, he wins out because as many have said without quite saying he sort of was vu.

as far as nico is concerned, she sucked & i wish she had been aborted because thats how bad she sucked.

I voted for Lou, but he's the one I'd least like to hang out with.

deeznuts, I can't believe I thought you were donut when you first started.

as far as nico is concerned, she sucked & i wish she had been aborted because thats how bad she sucked.

NO

Nico sung some of their best songs, and that is a good thing about her. She didn't write them, though, and her voice was awful.

i kind of agree to what tom wrote. the discussions polls can trigger are usually much more gratifying than their results. btw i won't vote at all. as i consider the question to be absurd. and also because i don't like the idea to be in a majority of 90% or something like that. which probably won't even happen. but should if you think of it.

If I can plug my own VU threads
Doug Yule - Classic or Doug?:
TS John Lennon vs. Lou Reed: Who Is The Better Rhythm Guitar Player?

Hey, that thread title thing works again! Kudos to Keith and his team!

Alex OTM
I did vote, but the question is kind of absurd. It's a bit like boy/girl bands such as Backstreet Boys, Westlife, Take That, Spice Girls or Boyzone, where the fans did tend to have favourite membmers.

Shakey's right about Lou's irritating ticks, and I'm not going to argue with Tim about who's the "better" songwriter. As a rock CHARACTER -- persona, performance, and SONGS -- Reed is clearly superior. Cale's recorded several excellent albums I listen to with pleasure, but, fair or unfair, I hold his modesty against him. Lou clearly wrote songs to fit the persona (as Cale did too in the mid-seventies hockey mask mode), but his awful mainstream flirtations have a fascination and charm that Cale, for all his craft, simply wasn't interested in. It's what makes the early eighties trifecta (The Blue Mask-Legendary Hearts-New Sensation) so masterful: you can't listen to those songs and not remark that playing the peroxide-blond trannie-loving fool gives them an emotional underpinning that a more anonymous craftsman like Cale simply isn't interest in.

Cale wasn't interested in "growing up in public" (a tendency, btw, I usually revile in celebrities but for which I make exceptions).

Maybe it comes down to "Guts" versus "I Wanna Be Black."

I may be reading you wrong Alfred but Cale - up to the early 80s anyway - strikes me as deeply emotionally committed to his material.

xpost "Guts" especially!

Yeah, you're reading me wrong. Simply put: Cale's performative eccentricities don't compel like Lou's, even though formally, song for song, he may surpass him.

Maybe this is better: Randy Newman vs Lou Reed.

hahaha

a good point about the development of the "persona" and how that compensates for other weaknesses in a lot of ways... and you did make me kinda wanna listen to the "trifecta" but then I remember how much I hated "The Blue Mask" the one time I listened to it 15 years ago. And on the other hand how interesting you find Lou's persona is probably directly proportional to how much of a vested interest you have in the idea of "transgression" (for which I care less and less as I get older - not out of any kind of puritanical conservatism, but just because it seems juvenile and pointless)

x-post

alfred have you ever heard cale's "heartbreak hotel" cover?

Like, do you care that there was a rockstar who thought it was important to mime shooting heroin onstage, play with queer stereotypes, and basically be as offensive as possible...? As virtues they seem small and petty and basically rooted in "I hate my parents' generation, they're so uptight maaaaan" silliness.

x-post

I voted for Lou Reed, on the grounds that I like his records the best, that Victor Bockris' biography is the funniest rock read I've ever had, and that I don't buy that the lyrics are poor. See the following:

I don’t like opera and I don’t like ballet
And new wave french movies, they just drive me away
I guess I’m just dumb, ’cause I know that I ain’t smart
But deep down inside, I got a rock ’n’ roll heart
Yeah-yeah-yeah, deep down inside I got a rock ’n’ roll heart

Oh, rock ’n’ roll heart
Lookin’ for a good time
Just a rock ’n’ roll heart, roll heart, roll heart
Lookin’ for a good time

Also, John Cale, the only other contender, comes across like a rubbishy Welsh schoolteacher, and I can only think of one record of his I've enjoyed (Paris 1919).

The closest thing to transgressive Lou's been since 1982 was that song about sex with your parents (a good tune too!).

Although I'm probably alone I loved Ecstasy; it made my top ten that year, and it's a good example of muscular singer-songwriter rock informed by wisdom, a waning interest in transgression, and simply hanging on without acquiescing.

alfred have you ever heard cale's "heartbreak hotel" cover?

I have, and I love it -- my favorite Elvis cover!

To Lou's credit, Shakey, those early eighties records (are they the best made by a sixties "survivor" that decade?) are about realizing the limits of transgression, how it fucks up the people you love -- and never mind yourself.

well, as a counter-example re: lyrics, let's take the famous Sister Ray refrain "too busy suckin on my ding dong", a childish phrase obviously intended to titillate for its brazen "naughtiness" yet the line itself is clumsy and also rather inauthentic - I mean honestly who the fuck calls it a "ding dong". It seems intended to come across as shocking and explicit, but its really closer to something an 8-year-old would relish repeating (while having no idea what it means).

All the other elements of the song, however = perfect.

x-post

while I enjoyed your graf Albert Legendary Hearts is still unlistenable garbage along with about half of New Sensations

those early eighties records (are they the best made by a sixties "survivor" that decade?)

hmmm a separate question I will have to ponder - my first inclination is to give that honor to Neil Young for Trans and Freedom

I think that's an opinion thing, though... I like that lyric too. xx-post.

honestly for most of Sister Ray I just wish Lou would shut the fuck up

"Bottoming Out" is OK though I'll give you that one

See, this question is: "Best member of the VU"

Not "Best musician/artist/whatever in the VU"

Constituent Part.

You could not call it the Velver Underground without Moe. (OK, I know they did!)

Lou wrote and sang as he did before, but it was not like the VU.
John wrote and sang much different than before.
Sterling retired pretty much from music.
Doug carried on as the Velvet Underground as the sole auteur.
I have forgotten my point in all this.

Neil Young was my only other candidate, and for those two records, although I'd take only half of Trans.

"Bottoming Out" is OK though I'll give you that one

and "Don't Talk To Me About Work," "The Last Shot," "Betrayed..." The arrangements are staid compared to its predecessor's, but they suit the songs, which are about compromise, failure, and demons that won't stay the fuck away.

I really like that song they did for the reunion tour: "Coyote". Maybe the only worthwhile thing to come out of that tour? At least from the recordings.

God "Don't Talk to Me About Work" is just horrible

"Betrayed" is all right, whole album's a big letdown after Blue Mask

We went to see them at the Town and Country, and it was "WOW IT'S THE VU! THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!" and they smiled at us...

When I heard the live album, I was all "oh. but... it was exactly like this! but it seemed wonderful at the time"

Lou did best with songs he obviously hadn;t played live for thirty years ("Guess I'm falling in love") rather than ones he'd done solo all that time ("Venus in Furs"). But Sterling was on the money with the solos on Rock and Roll and so on.

i'm voting for lou because the VU was obviously his best work. transformer and berlin come close, but you can't fuck with lou's VU songs.

however cale's solo career is definitely my favorite.

Shakey, you need to listen to "My House," the first minute of which is a textbook example to me of how a perfect band listens to its members, and "Waves of Fear" again.

I voted for Lou because this is ILM and I like to be contrarian.

John Cale was a disaster as the producer of Squeeze's first album. Their next three albums were all classics, but that debut was a disgrace, thanks to Cale's idea that they abandon all prewritten songs and only write new stuff in the studio. "Take Me I'm Yours" is the only good song on the album.

hey, i really liked "ecstasy" too! i always forget about that one. and "coney island baby". ok yeah there are some good solo lou albums. but none as good as "paris 1919" or "fear"!

r: somebody shut the door, heh

c: you can talk during this

r: well get outta here

c: wrong wrong wrong wrong

r: oh shut the door

c: *slap* ahhh!

r: it's only port or nutin i dn

c: b-b-b-b-b-b-b

r: (but she dint pay dollar a night (???))

c: woot-hoot-hooo!

r: ooooo motown, wooo!

c: it's not even five feet

r: you gonna look like marvin and (????)

r: oww we just gonna start it all over again someone get her outta here

r: electricity comes from other planets

c: ooooooo

c: it's not that bad a solo

c: four times, it's pretty together

r: you can't say that

c: yes i can

c: i can talk to myself this way

r: lock the door this time

Is all of that actually Cale tho?

Not that it matters that much...

r: you gonna look like marvin and (????)

i always thought this was "you don't look like martha and the vandellas"
the only bit that sounds like cale is the bit right at the end

"the pope in a silver castle"!!!

^ not cale but favourite bit

yeah i love that line, how did i miss that!

maybe it's actually r. pwning c.

yeah, "martha and the vandellas'

I thought most of it was sterling!

isn't it mostly lou talking to his own back-up track?

also moe was robbed ;_;

Oh, and Nico doesn't really belong up there.

Fuck you, yes she does. Like it or not, she was in the damn band, people.

-- Bimble,

And fuck you right back! cuz she wasn't. Not a question of "liking it" or not - just semantics. She performed with them and collaborated with them but never actually joined 'em.

MVB OTM, but I liked having her and Yule in the poll so they could be pwned.

http://img.nrk.no/img/552642.jpeg
She taught me about wine, real wine

Nico : VU :: Steve Martin : SNL

John Cale OBE
http://www.spinnermusic.co.uk/2010/06/14/graham-nash-velvet-underground-john-cale-obe/

Yeh, John Cale OBE!

Moe Tucker solo anthology coming from Sundazed