The Velvet Underground are the most important alternative band in the history of 20th Century music and this year marks the 50th anniversary of their second album White Light/White Heat, the last album to be released with the original line-up.
Whether you are a fan of the Velvet Underground or not, their significance is not up for debate. As some of the critics pointed out, when you hear a band you say: oh, yeah, they like to listen to this and that, they took this from this band and wanted to make something like this band... In other words, the genesis is clear. With the Velvet Underground it's nothing like that. They came out of the blue, sounded like nobody before, recorded 4 legendary albums and then disappeared. Nobody managed to recreate their sound ever since, even though they've probably influenced just about every artist in the world, one way or another.
Their first and most famous album, ''The Velvet Underground & Nico'' turned 50 last year and it only sold 30,000 copies at the time of its release, but managed to leave all the other releases in the dark. However, I don't think that's even remotely fair. Yes, the VU & Nico was groundbreaking and yes, the cover art was made by Andy Warhol and yes, it's edgy, it's dark, it's genderbending, it's like nothing nobody has ever heard of or seen before but from the musical standpoint, I vote for White Light/White Heat.
Now, the Velvets were famous for their unique musical style or better yet - approach. It all comes down to this simple formula: jamming for hours, playing dirty (lots of feedback and noise) and keeping it simple (in terms of harmony). Lou Reed once said: one chord and you're fine. Two chords and you're pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz. They would also incorporate sado-mazo dancing in their shows and all sorts of crazy visuals made by Warhol. The lyrics were dealing with drugs, S&M, sex, murder, crime, power, transvestites and other borderline themes of that period. They would drone for hours in one note only, pushing the limits of the audience as well as heir own. The combination was a killer. You'd feel like being a part of the craziest never ending party.
Given all that, the first album is a compromise between what they wanted to do and what they had to in order to find a publisher. The VU & Nico opens with Sunday Morning sung by Lou Reed in his most feminine voice, it features beautiful love songs such as I'll Be Your Mirror and a classic 60's feel rock song There She Goes Again as well as the more brutal stuff like European Son and Heroin. I don't think there's a bad song on the album (I don't even think they have a bad song) and the commercial VS brutal mix works, but it's exactly that - a mix. It showes the best of the Velvet Underground as well as what they had to do in order to get the album out. There's a bootleg of the album called ''The Velvet Underground and Nico acetate'' and it features an original tracklist as well as the original mix of the album, the one that was turned down by record companies. I bought an LP copy of that version in a record store in France and the difference is obvious - the album starts with European Son (not ends) and there's no Sunday Morning etc...
And that brings us to why I favor White Light/White Heat. Sterling Morrison (band's guitarist) remarked "We were all pulling in the same direction. We may have been dragging each other off a cliff, but we were all definitely going in the same direction." and John Cale (bassist) said ''It's a very rabid record... The first one had some gentility, some beauty. The second one was consciously anti-beauty." That puts it quite nicely. The second one made no compromises and it was all about sheer brutality. They parted ways with Warhol and Nico and made a record that is in your face from the first to the last second. It's even more dirty, the lyrics are more extreme, the sound is so distorted at times you can't hear what's going on, it features an 18 minutes jamm track called Sister Ray and it's all around more dark than the first one. The sound and production of the band is more consisten throughout the record and it sucks you right in. There's nothing ''nice and gentle'' about this one. It's all ''falling of a cliff''.
"The Gift", for example, contains a recital of a short story and a loud instrumental rock song playing simultaneously, with the former on the left speaker channel and the latter on the right on the stereo version. "I Heard Her Call My Name" is distinguishable for its distorted guitar solos and prominent use of feedback. The record's lyrics vary from themes of drug use and sexual references (such as fellatio and orgies), including the song "Lady Godiva's Operation", about a transsexual woman's botched lobotomy, and the title track "White Light/White Heat", which describes the use of amphetamine. "Here She Comes Now" is built around a double-entendre. On the album's last track, "Sister Ray", Lou Reed tells a tale of debauchery involving drag queens having a failed orgy, while the band plays an improvised seventeen-minute jam around three chords. (Wikipedia)
For those who want to learn more about The Velvet Underground, there's a great book by Richie Unterberger called ''White Light/White Heat, the Velvet Underground day by day''. I highly recommend it.
