The Velvet Underground & Nico poll

after listening to this alb, on and off, for the best part of 30 years, I finally got to stand at Lexington/125 earlier this year, so just had to vote for 'Waiting...'

Forget the lyrics. "Venus in Furs" is so sexy and odd and wondrous.

"Heroin," just barely over "I'm Waiting for the Man" and "Tomorrow's Parties." Least favourite: "Venus and Furs," "I'll Be Your Mirror."

One of the last two - probably "Black Angel..."

There's an amazing couple of minutes in Jonas Mekas's As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty that uses "Run Run Run" as Mekas's kid runs around frantically. Skimmed through the half of the film that's up on YouTube, but couldn't find it.

i read a book about nico but i don't remember which one it was. it definitely talked a lot about how much of a mess she was in the 80s.

can I vote for the banana?

nico icon wasn't exactly a flattering portrait, kinda flawed but compelling.

She was a despicable racist scumbag

also I would have to vote "Venus in furs", one of my favorite songs (and inexplicably the first song my kid ever said "yay!" about at the end)

"All Tomorrow's Parties" - mono album version. Scepter Studios forever.

xp James Young's book is one of my favourite rock memoirs ever. He's a fantastic writer and it's as much about life bumping along the bottom of the music industry as it is about Nico.

^^this

In the restaurant at the Chelsea Hotel sometime in the very early 1970s, Nico sat with a bunch of musicians, among them a beautiful mixed-race singer who'd worked with Jimi Hendrix. According to Fields, "Nico was, I dunno, feeling neglected, or drunk, but suddenly she said 'I hate black people,' and smashed a wineglass on the table and stuck it in the girl's eye. There was lots of blood and screaming. Fortunately she just twisted it around her eye socket, so the glass never reached [the eye] but it's not like she was being cautious." Fields claims the Warhol crowd spirited Nico on to a plane and out of the country the next morning, while somehow managing to placate the victim and hush up the affair.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2007/mar/16/popandrock3

voted I'm Waiting For the Man. Something about the pulse of that song, the way it's just like ONE ONE ONE ONE ONE ONE ONE ONE

Also see the Rolling Stones "Satisfaction".

Voted "Sunday Morning" cos GOD is that song too beautiful for words.

I never understood why mixed race people are more black than white. can anyone elucidate?

To a Nazi shithead like nico anything other than pure caucasian ancestry is to be abhorred obv

I always found something very scary about her eyes an facial expression

"[Hendrix] was the most sexual man I ever saw on stage", Nico confessed, "even Mick Jagger said so. It was not all the vulgar things he did with his guitar, though I enjoyed when he burned his guitar at the festival. It was his presence. He was like a cat. He moved elegantly for a man. He was suave. Did you know he was half Indian? Cherokee. I think these mixtures are very good. I am a mixture, part Turkish, part Russian. We would have made wonderful children together, such a mixture".

she had a kid with Alain Delon, looks exactly like Alain Delon..

No one should be overly surprised that Nico could be prone to contradict herself. However, that story from the Guardian is indeed horrible. It was new to me.

Alain Delon, as pretty as he was, is hardly an item for her defense. He's a miserable shithead.

she was the Ty Cobb of chanteuses

soz I misspoke: nazi shithead who fancied jimi hendrix

i never knew that either. really gross. but that's what i gathered from the book i read too -- that she just turned into a really mean/selfish/ugly to the core sort of person.
it was like she ended up spiritually hollow, and that's lamentable when it happens to anyone.

Yeah, that's about the impression I got from watching Nico: Icon last night. A long descent, basically.

she had a kid with Alain Delon, looks exactly like Alain Delon..

extended junkiedom usually accompanied by (or requires?) a certain narcissism (see also: Chet Baker)

thanking u, morbs

Actually before the kid even came up thought about posting in comedy French accent defending his mother's honor.

she was the Ty Cobb of chanteuses

Sunday Morning is the one I listen to most often

I remember buying this on cassette for £3.99 around 91 in the Our Price in Victoria station.

Supposedly, when she broke up with Lou Reed, he asked her why, and she simply said, "Louuuuu, I just can't sleep with Jews anymore!"

There's different versions of that story. One says he dumped her, and she was quoted on that afterwards.

i first listened to VU and Nico when i was 17.

I'm Waiting sounded very strange to me. the melody was good, but i didn't know what to think about the minimalist monotonic drumming.
obviously, the ONE ONE ONE drumming is what makes the song special. otherwise, it would be a garage number like There She Goes.

i remember loving Venus In Furs because of the violin and the dramatic atmosphere. now it's overplayed.

but Heroin was and still is the best song i heard from this record.
the straightforwardness and sincerity of it sounded amazing. they still do. the noisy -ahead of it's time- guitar in the 2nd part and the intensive drumming sounded so special and matched the lyrics perfectly. they still do.

Lee's voice didn't change much since, which is a virtue.

lou's of course..

after these stories of Nico just randomly stabbing people in the eye and shit i'm kinda picturing her tenure with VU being like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x3rzeDeOuk

5. "Run Run Run" 4:22
10. "The Black Angel's Death Song" Reed, Cale 3:11
11. "European Son" Reed, Cale, Morrison, Tucker 7:46

i like these the best

I take it all the people going for 5, 10, 11 didn't rate the third album very highly, but loved the second.

Different days of the week, bro.

love them all
xpost

WL/WH is my favourite Velvets album but on the debut I prefer the more straightahead material...and VIF.

also , White Light sound different from 5,10, and 11

eh I've always felt like the last 10 minutes of this album start to get a bit grating tbh

Venus. 2 is rock n roll, but ViF is so alien, so strange, and that's before you even ponder the lyrics

'european son' is the only song here i don't love. sounds like they wanted to do 'sister ray' but hadn't figured out how to do it yet.

Oh, the "Waiting for the man" thing:

I'm sure you all know the 'bang bang bang' of the piano, the surprise is that the mono version has the piano mixed right back and the guitar being the loudest instrument. I guess Lou was in for the mono mixing session then..

this is as tough as a poll gets.

i had to go with "sunday morning" though. painfully gorgeous, it anchors the whole record, ushers it in, creates space and a sense of anticipation, between the opening celesta and the bass, for all the noise, midday hustle and nocturnal weirdness to come later. it's a cliche to say that vu&nico changes lives, but it's true, and that change starts right there, with those opening notes...so you can't forget that. i can't. there's nothing subtle about it at all.

I love wlwh, I love booker t so much and I heard her call my name is brilliantly crazy, as is lgo in a totally different way. I think the third album is overall too soft for me as a whole, although it had brilliant songs. Taking the best track tracks from both albums, you have an album that rivals the debut. I prefer tge noise songs on wlwh to 10, 11 on this, concur with jd

!

https://press.warhol.org/press/the-warhol-announces-the-discovery-and-digitalization-of-the-rare-master-tapes-of-the-velvet-undergrounds-debut-album-the-velvet-underground-nico/

The Andy Warhol Museum announces the discovery and digitization of the rare master tapes of the Velvet Underground’s debut album The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967, Verve Records). Recently identified while processing Andy Warhol’s archive at The Warhol, the nine initial tracks recorded by the band were the bedrock of the album that became one of my most jarring and influential albums in rock music. The monophonic reel-to-reel ¼” tapes feature alternate versions and mixes of songs later issued on the 1967 release.

just in time for a 56th anniversary box!

assuming there's nothing unheard on here, but it'll be cool to hear the Scepter stuff minus the acetate crackles.