The Velvet Underground & Nico poll

"All tomorrow's Parties" has such a harsh yet glorious ringing sound.

It's gorgeous.

This is one of those albums that I really wish I could have heard with no preconceptions. I can't imagine picking it up at random and trying to make sense of the band from "Sunday Morning" onward.

When i was a teen/tween i loved all the twee VU tracks and was mystified by the noisier, more challenging stuff. When it all "clicked" after i reallly felt the last minute or so of "heroin" it was world-exploding. I think a lot of listeners are similar: they form a relationship with some songs, with nico, and then are more willing to be led into artier music for the first time.

oh god and cale strangling his viola in early art-freakout mode without that being the only point of the song. it has that balance that he followed for the rest of his career.

so otm

cale's so great because he he's this bizarre mix of compromise and uncompromise

Yeah I think Heroin is the best at offering everything that this record has to offer

Waiting over Heroin.

Q: how many people listened to Heroin and thought, I'll have some of that please VS those who thought, this is amazing and all but thanks for the warning, never going to do that.

"sunday morning, venus in furs, all tomorrow's parties, and heroin are the four tracks that feel like they belong on this album and nowhere else."

otm

"How can this not have been polled before? "

see also the 3rd VU record

the noisy -ahead of it's time- guitar in the 2nd part

I think that's viola you're hearing there but I'm not sure what you mean by the 2nd part tbh

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

there is perfectly fine stuff on everything after WLWH but i don't think of it as the VU

In my first term at university this is one of the handful of albums that my new clique of friends could agree on so I heard it dozens of times. At first my favourite was Venus in Furs because it was weird, then Heroin because it was terrifying, then Sunday Morning because it was beautiful, then I wasn't sure. When this poll came up I wasn't going to vote because what's great about this album is that every track is a distinct entity, almost from a different band, so choosing a favourite becomes an apples-and-oranges situation, but when I did my ballot for the big Lou Reed poll I surprised myself by choosing I'm Waiting for the Man as my #1. It's just so relentless and perfect and startling, coming after Sunday Morning, and it tells you everything about Lou. His literary ambitions really make sense here - these could be the first lines of a novel. He doesn't just write explicitly about drugs, he gives you an address and a price tag. He puts you right there on the corner.

there is perfectly fine stuff on everything after WLWH but i don't think of it as the VU

VU in the 1969 is exactly what I think of as the VU

the first is + Nico
the third and fourth are - Cale
so WLWH is the only real VU record..

as if the terminology makes a difference..

"he noisy -ahead of it's time- guitar in the 2nd part

I think that's viola you're hearing there but I'm not sure what you mean by the 2nd part tbh"

the part after "and it's my wife haha" and yeah, it's a viola, but still, the SY/Les Rallizes Dénudés sound is ahead of it's time..

the jamc once said in an interview that heroin was the best song ever, apart from the violins

Guys I checked allmusic and it turns out all of those albums are by the velvet underground xps

even squeeze

Sure why not

(

Have never heard it)

JAMC also said I Wanna Be Your Dog was the best song ever "apart from that fucking horrible guitar solo". I used to love JAMC interviews.

Voted Sunday Morning.

that's not my post otm

they were a better band with Yule imo. I could listen to "Foggy Notion" and Live 1969 all day.

eh scratch that. Like Roxy, they weren't a better or worse band with the loss of an essential member, just different.

I take it all the people going for 5, 10, 11 didn't rate the third album very highly, but loved the second.
― OutdoorFish, Monday, 4 November 2013 22:58

i like 3rd a lot

(xp) My thoughts entirely, though tbh I listen to the Yule era about 100 times more often than the Cale era, although there is a lot more to listen to

Venus in Furs and European Son and maybe maybe Run Run Run are the only songs on this album that I occasionally skip. The rest is perfect. I voted Heroin even though the recorded version is just about the worst version of it in existence.

curious what you'd pick as better versions? i sort of feel the opposite way about it.

Same here

Basically any live version. I even love the version on the Live '93 disc, although I think most people don't.

Basically I think it's a much better song when the drums are in sync with the rest of the music.

The Noise is much better on the album version

Run Run Run -- it's all about that groove, and especially about the way those first four notes of the guitar solo rip so invigoratingly through the surface of the song

how ironic, got the flatmates cd I ordered today, very good. thought it was finished, went out the room and a bit later I hear music. huh? what d'ya know, a hidden track cover version of femme fatale.

Think I prefer the Columbus Run, Run, Run cos it sounds more like a Dresden air raid

My older brother bought the cassette of this in 1985, but it jumbled the running order to maximize tape (as pre-recorded cassettes often did). "Black Angel's Death Song" is second, and "I'm Waiting For The Man" is 10th. I actually prefer it that way; "Waiting" feels like a more natural lead-in to "European Son."

So weird to go from Sunday Morning to Black Angel's Death Song imo

It didn't seem weird to me at the time (that is, for the first 10 years or so that I was listening to it -- I didn't know it was the wrong running order until Peel Slowly came out), but in retrospect, it does seem odd.

It worked, though; after the lilting "Sunday Morning" I thought, "Wow, what a nice pop song! Wonder what all the fuss was about? Why were they so reviled?" (cue "Black Angel's") "OH, I UNDERSTAND NOW."

yeah that is strange. my cassette was in the same order as the LP, but the cassette of wlwh was different from the LP. I heard her call my name opened the second side.

It does on the LP, too.

I bought the cassette in '85 too, and after playing "Sunday Morning" I wondered where the proto-punk noise was; then, instead of continuing through to "Watiting For The Man", I flipped it and got to hear the final few minutes of "European Son" instead.

I knew it was going to be an interesting trajectory from start to finish.

the way reed sings

oh
and i guess
i just don't know

at the very end of 'heroin' may be my favorite few seconds of vocal performance by anyone.

oh yeah, side one was the title track followed by sister ray, side two was call my name followed by the rest of side one

u spit on those under 21

european son is too short (the tune itself)

ATP

oh yeah, side one was the title track followed by sister ray, side two was call my name followed by the rest of side one

― OutdoorFish, Tuesday, November 5, 2013 2:48 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Weird! That's pretty much the worst/most anti-climactic imaginable running order for that record.

Is it true Velvet Underground albums were out-of-print in the early 80s?