Nico's 'Chelsea Girls'

Much much better, I think that trilogy of albums is unique, some of the most truly original music of the late 60s/early 70s. Of course John Cale had an awful lot to do with it as well, in fact it's really a collaboration between the two. "Chelsea Girl" is a good 67/68-ish art/folk rock album, Nico herself is what makes it stand out.

I fundamentally agree with this, but I see why people like Chelsea Girl (singular or plural, fact fans?).

If you like Chelsea Girl you may also like Nick Drage's "Bryter Layter".

Chelsea Girl (singular or plural, fact fans?)
LP title is singular, song title/film title is plural.

"i'm not sayin'" and "the longest mile" - they're on the immediate singles collection and a more recent nico best of.

no reason really, just acting out the psychodramas in my own head, er i mean joking.. sorry

but i really hate the way nico is misogynistically denigrated by pube headed rock archaeologists like charlie shaar murray and oliver stone as just a groupie... she didn't need anyone's help to shine (except arguably cale's)

Music for a New Society is great, but it doesn't have the beauty of those Nico records, it frostier, more nihilistic.

Ornette taught her how to play the harmonium, btw.

yes, the prelude to a sadly never-realized "nico sings lightfoot" lp

i like browne's own version of "these days" too--it's a lovely song

yes, the prelude to a sadly never-realized "nico sings lightfoot" lp

you guys probably know this but that's Jimmy Page playing guitar on those songs.

nico sort of flattens out the gordon lightfoot melody, ridding it of his bluesy inflections (which i quite like, before the lightfoot hatas come out to make fun). but i still think it's a really cool arrangement--i think andrew loog oldham produced it.

my god she had the best song titles ever!

I heard that Ornette bought her the harmonium not that he actually taught her to play it. But, let's be honest, do you believe anything Nico said?

yes

was completely unprepared for the first time I ever heard 'Alone'

Does she really sing out of tune sometimes? I think she hits notes pretty well overall, no? You might not like the timbre of her voice, but that's different.

Chelsea Girls is a film by Andy Warhol that Nico was in. The title refers to the Chelsea Hotel in NY, where the characters were supposed to be (and probably actually were) living.

maybe yr thinking of the bonus tracks on the Peel Slowly and See box set? I know it includes It Was a Pleasure and Melody Laughter...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgdZFnZ6M0k

I can't stop listening to this song

so weird i just put on these days today

well i guess not that weird

i like this album a lot

shakey mo, here's the original (w/o jimmy page on 12-string unlike Nico's):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Af5d1FeJn4

yeah I know. prefer Nico's version with the cavernous percussion

I heard the Nico version on the radio a couple of years ago and had the same obsession, Shakey. Shame the sound quality's so ratty on that clip.

yeah doesn't really do it justice, it's a beautiful production

nico had a weird life, didn't she.

and not a very happy one afaict

it's funny but I don't really care for any of the rest of her solo work - I really dig her in baroque folk-pop mode but the End and Marble Index are like soundtracks to silly German movies I don't really have any interest in watching

I only knew Chelsea Girls and Marble Index but I fell head over heels in love with "Janitor of Lunacy" after hearing it earlier this year. What a vocal performance.

More than once I've put "It Was a Pleasure Then" on repeat for an hour or so. It was, in fact, a pleasure.

Somewhere There's a Feather always causes me to mist up.

Royal Tennenbaums almost ruined "These Days" for me

― Paul (scifisoul), Wednesday, May 12, 2004 4:56 PM (6 years ago) Bookmark

This is your own fault.

You can't ruin "These Days." It even survived a Zellers commercial.

If you let a good song get fuined by a movie or a commercial, it's the fault of your own lack of imagination, it's a sentiment that really irks me, that a good song can be killed by a commercial or film.

"I'm Not Saying" > pretty much everything else Nico has ever sang on

nico had a weird life, didn't she.

― tylerw, Friday, November 5, 2010 7:51 PM (2 years ago)

and not a very happy one afaict

― the Whiney G. Weingarten Memorial 77 Clique (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, November 5, 2010 8:03 PM (2 years ago)

These guys OTM. Watched Nico: Icon last night. What a bleak and harrowing fucking story. The contrasts between beauty and ugliness in her life is striking. Sadly, the beauty usually relates to her art, and the ugliness to her life.

Never really listened much to this record, btw. Went straight to Marble Index. It's very nice, though.

she sang out of tune because she was deaf in one ear, and the velvets used to mock her for it. happy life, I believe she shared her heroin with her child.

According to the movie, she did. The guy from Ash Ra Tempel, whom she lived with in the 70s said so. I think maybe her son Ari says so himself, too.

It's a sordid story.

I didn't know about this:
http://www.audiospace.vn/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/the-bill-evans-trio-moon-beams-3.jpg

Not finding a general Nico thread...This just opened here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38RBdHtWkWo

Not sure if I'll see it. I saw the poster a few weeks and assumed it was a documentary--that I'd see. It's not, and it looks like it might be an ordeal from the trailer.

It Was A Pleasure Then was definately the Velvet Underground song i always wished they had done.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Tuesday, May 11, 2004 5:27 PM (fourteen years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Haven't read all of the thread but this wasn't responded to at the time it was posted. I heard that the backing of the song was based on Melody Laughter the improvisation the VU did live I think regularly and definitely on the Columbus Ohio set that's now available with the larger box set of the first lp and in edited form on the Peel Slowly and See box set.
Columbus, Ohio version is 28 minutes long as is The Nothing Song which they also did in the same set. I think both were done live with wordless vocal improvisations by Nico.

I would heavily recommend the frozen Borderline set that mops up the recordings from marble Index and Desertshore plus out takes.
Also the 2cd version of The End. Don't like the title track of that '70s lp though seems too close to the original. But tracks on the first side are long term favourites as they have been for the last 35 odd years.
Are those lps labeled proto-goth these days? Hope not, seem pretty original to me. & maybe Goth has faded into the distant past already.

Co-sign on The Frozen Borderline, it sounds great and the outtakes are wonderful.

I didn't know about this:

― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Monday, November 4, 2013 9:13 AM (four years ago)

Link broke, fixed:

https://i.imgur.com/oIbalp8.jpg

This album just got a mention on Coronation Street!

What was said about it?!

There was a conversation between two characters about the name for a hairdressers or something, the dialogue went something like:

"What about Elsie's Girls? You know like Chelsea Girls..."
"What? What's that?"
"You know, the album by Nico, the woman who sang with the Velvet Underground?"

... something like that.

"What about Elsie's Girls? You know like Chelsea Girls..."
"What? What's that?"
"You know how in 1955 Lewis Separates was rebranded Chelsea Girl and became one of the UK's first female fashion chains, before being subsumed under the River Island umbrella in the 90s? Like that, but plural!"

^^ more realistic

Well, Mico did live in Weatherfield Manchester for a while.

... Nico (flaming phone!)

Manco

Lol I wondered if this was a Corrie-related revive

God that dialogue was clumsy