The Velvet Underground – Film Review

 Review for www.nomoreworkhorse.com 

Album Review: Lou Reed - Coney Island Baby

Coney Island Baby was released at the end of 1975, the follow up to Lou Reed’s aggressively noisy Metal Machine Music.  This album couldn’t be further away, his band, including ex-Velvet Underground bass player Doug Yule, create a warm, melodic collection of songs.

The lyrical message across this album is of Reed’s blissful love life.  Opening with the chiming keyboards of Crazy Feeling, the lyrics are peppered with references to his love interest Rachel (“and you, you really are a queen, oh such a queen”).  The strutting, skipping guitars of Charley’s Girl follow before the guitars add a little bite on a slowed-down version of VU tune She’s My Best Friend (guess who).

The album takes a sharp left as, unhappy with this gooey softness, the Lou Reed street persona reappears on Kicks, a murderous tale of getting thrills from violence (“when the blood comes down his neck, don’t you know it was way better than s€x”) as snatches of conversation swoop in and out, creating a most unsettling atmosphere which threatens to completely spoil the mood.

A Gift follows, where Reed sings tongue-in-cheek lyrics about being “just a gift to the women of this world” over soothing, strummed guitars and dippy pipes.  After two relatively throwaway songs, the sighing guitars of the title track are a fitting end to the album.  Here Reed recites a possibly autobiographical (hard to tell though as the man lies constantly) tale from his childhood of high school days and sports try-outs over a wonderful melody.  Some of the lyrics hark back to his edgier past (“all your two-bit friends, they’ve gone and ripped you off”), culminating in Reed cooing about the “glory of love…. man, I swear I’d give the whole thing up for you”.  It sounds quite wonderful, though it’s so far removed from Heroin, Waiting for the Man and Berlin that it’s hard to take it 100% at face value.  Nonetheless it’s probably the most tuneful Lou Reed album.

Album Review: The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground’s 3rd album is an underrated gem. After the intensity of their first 2, it’s a much lower-key experience. The artwork is predominantly black with a cool-looking black and white photo. It creeps quietly into the room with the opening track Candy Says, which is sung by Doug Yule who replaced John Cale in the band. The playing on this and most of the rest of the album is spare and simple. On the face of it, it’s a quiet poppy album, but there are moments when things are just a little off (a little guitar distortion here and there) which makes the album a little messed-up, in a good way.

The pace picks up a bit with What Goes On which jumps along nicely, Lou Reed taking vocal duties and a great guitar solo. In fact, the guitar all over this album is really good and blends in well with the quietly sung vocals. Some Kinda Love has a bit of swagger to it before 2 very quiet songs – Pale Blue Eyes and Jesus (even quieter). If there is any kind of slow anthem on this album, Pale Blue Eyes is it. It has probably the most conventional structure here, with a proper verse and chorus. Jesus is the quietest song on here, and is a kind of odd song with lyrics like “Jesus, help me find my proper place”.

The album is thrown in a different direction by the more propulsive Beginning to See the Light, which features quick-strummed guitars and some fairly unhinged vocals from Reed. It’s followed by 2 more quietish songs, I’m Set Free and That’s the Story of My Life. These, like most of the rest feature some really clean-sounding jangly guitar, quite influential on the jangly guitar bands of the 1980s.

The second last track, The Murder Mystery is a departure. Featuring more words in it than the previous 8 tracks combined, sonically it’s also quite different. If anything it harks back to Cale-era VU, with a torrent of lyrics cascading through each side of the stereo (try it with headphones, different lyrics left and right!). It sounds more eerie than the rest of the album, with ghostly-sounding guitars and thrilling stops and starts. The ending of this track is a little disappointing, with a seemingly random piano playing accompanied by yet more random lyrics. It’s not like anything else I’ve heard, that’s for sure.

Unfortunately I really don’t enjoy the closing track, After Hours, which features drummer Mo Tucker on cloying vocals. The whole tune is to my ears a little cheesy.

Overall the rest of the album is great, it’s one of those albums I dig out every so often and never get tired of it. Each time I listen to it, a little more of it reveals itself. Although it’s overshadowed by its 2 predecessors, this album endures and does not suffer with age (was released in 1968!). It's very much an album to sit and listen to in a room rather than a party album.