23. The Velvet Underground, "The Velvet Underground and Nico"

 

I was sitting on the floor of one of my apartments in college listening to this album and someone else in the room was idly looking at the track list and said "What's 'Heroin' about?"  Um.  

When I put a spike into my vein
And I tell you things aren't quite the same
When I'm rushin' on my run
And I feel just like Jesus' son
And I guess that I just don't know

Lou Reed was never afraid to tackle stuff that was absolutely not fit for normal conversation in the late 60s, whether it be the rush of heroin or the rush of BDSM (in "Venus in Furs") or prostitution ("There She Goes Again").  It all came together on this album, absolutely one of the most important albums in the history of rock (more on which later).

Almost every song on this is a classic.  "Sunday Morning," the album opener, is in the tradition of Sunday Morning songs, about, as guitarist Sterling Morrison put it, "how you feel when you've been up all Saturday night and you're crawling home while people are going to church.  The sun is up and you're like Dracula, hiding your eyes."  Not an unfamiliar feeling, to some of us!  (See also Johnny Cash's "Sunday Morning Coming Down" or Oasis' "Sunday Morning Call".)  Then it's just BANG, one after another, "I'm Waiting for the Man," about buying heroin in New York City.  Lou sings about going up to "Lexington 125," i.e., Lexington and 125th, to wait for his man.  That intersection today:

But that song for real will get stuck in your head something serious.  It's got that driving beat that the Velvets successfully deployed on a lot of songs, but also there's a pop sensibility hidden in there.  That same sort of driving beat shows up in "Run Run Run," another song at least partially about doing heroin but also with a vaguely Beach Boys-y vibe in the titular chorus.  Again, that pop vibe shows up.

The "Nico" of the title was German singer/actress/model Christa Päffgen, and she joined the core group in 1967 and sings lead on three of the songs, to my mind, unfortunately.  For whatever other charms she had, Nico does not have a beautiful voice, and her flatlined delivery on "Femme Fatale" and "All Tomorrow's Parties" has always bothered me.  (Also "I'll Be Your Mirror," but I don't love that song to start with.)

Then you have a song like "There She Goes Again," another pop-infused gem that obviously influenced later bands like R.E.M. (who covered it for the B-side of "Radio Free Europe") and any other jangle-pop band you might think of.

This album is widely recognized as one of the most influential of all time.  Artists from David Bowie to Sonic Youth (very much so) to Television and Pavement and the Strokes owe a debt to this record.  It's hard to overstate how important this album was, and is.  People still make jokes about how few copies this album sold (and 30,000 in the first FIVE YEARS) and it's easy to see why; it's dissonant and difficult at times (The penultimate song, "The Black Angel's Death Song," is an angry, abrasive noisefest that probably set the stage for acts like Einstürzende Neubauten).  But it's also quiet and reflective and sometimes just flat-out rocking.  

I came to this album backwards; I was super into VU, a collection of outtakes and B-sides that was released in 1985, and then starting working my way back through the catalog.  Both albums are in my Top 100.

Is this album in my personal Top 100? Yes.