 | | |
| The Velvet Underground & Nico | 
 enlarge | Artists: The Velvet Underground, Nico
Label: Polydor / Umgd
Category: Music
List Price: $9.98
Buy New: $5.27
You Save: $4.71 (47%)
Buy New/Used/Collectible from $4.61
Avg. Customer Rating:  (264 reviews)
Sales Rank: 1305
Format: Original Recording Reissued, Original Recording Remastered
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 4.9 x 0.5
MPN: 531250
UPC: 731453125025
EAN: 0731453125025
ASIN: B000002G7C
Publication Date: 1996
Release Date: May 7, 1996
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Must have for any classic rock collection January 29, 2007
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
This is a great album. Songs range from soft hippie rock to totally wierd and dark. Must have for any Lou Reed fan.
F*&#K MISCHIEF BREW AND OTHER CRAPPY FOLK/PUNK THIS IS IT!!! January 5, 2007
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Like the title said beware of crappy folky punk albums that suck, cas this is all you need. While the whole album is'nt folky its still remains essential in the genre. Well as many other genres: Folk, punk, goth, physicdelic, and classic. All done magnificently I might add. Tracks to DEFINETLY CHECK OUT: Sunday morning, I'm waiting for the man, Venus in furs, All tomarrows parties, Herion, and Black angels death song. While the whole albums flows excently these are the highlights. Not a single bad track on the album. Perfect.
After this album (if you care to read this far) I would sugjest previously unreleased (which amazon doesn't sell). Also perfect and made during the vets most creative point, 68-69
 Wake up, this is so overrated! January 1, 2007
14 out of 38 found this review helpful
Alright, I just listened repeatedly to the entire discography of the Velvets and reached the following conclusion: they were a mediocre rock'n'roll band who basically hit the lottery when Andy Warhol took them under his wing.Under his caring guidance they aparently mastered the art of portraying their useless output as avant-garde revelation, which the naive flower generation readily consumed in order to quench its own bourgeois complexes.The tale of the king's new clothes retold,more or less.Maybe they should be praised in corporate circles for inventive marketing strategy.
The only song that truly lives up to all the hype and their legendary status is definitely Venus in Furs.It has a unique sound and a decadent substance(things the band is often hailed for),the sound and the substance all the rest of their material lacks.VU remind a lot of the 60's Rolling Stones: bored white kids adopting a cool, blues attitude and a fashionably non-conformist lifestyle.At least the Stones never had any literary or art claims, a macabre and disturbing part of the VU cult,mostly fabricated by critics.Along with fellow Bowie, VU remain amongst the darlings of the average bo-bo pseudo-intellectual,an acquired taste handed down from generation to generation.Would anybody care to actually listen to those records with an open mind and recognize how plain they are?
"You Better Hit Her!" December 18, 2006
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
The Velvet Underground has become so famous for being the most underappreciated band of all time that it now borders on being downright overappreciated. Nevertheless, this New York City quartet/quintet was and remains inarguably one of the foremost influences in all of rock music and one of the few bands of its era which in no way sounds dated fully four decades later. Released in early 1967, THE VELVET UNDERGROUND & NICO was the Velvets' first album and is widely considered to be their best effort; certainly they never topped it.
While lead singer/guitarist/composer Lou Reed was very much the VU's driving force, the music here and on the band's other early releases differs sufficiently from Reed's lengthy solo catalogue to show that a cooperative spirit lay behind the Velvets' musical success - and, perhaps, their corresponding commercial failure. John Cale's avant-classical noodling on viola, piano and bass provides much of the bizarre ambience for which the band became legendary, only to modulate into the most lilting of pop sweetness a tune or two later. Rhythm guitarist Sterling Morrison and drummer Maureen Tucker likewise leave a frenetic but identifiable stamp on the proceedings. Finally, in her role as "chanteuse" on three tracks, Andy Warhol protege Nico adds that most suitably forbidding of elements - a genuine German accent - to an album which tends very much toward the dark and dour.
As important as the sounds themselves, however, is the manner of their presentation. At a time when albums such as SERGEANT PEPPER and ARE YOU EXPERIENCED were aggressively pushing the boundaries of the possible in the studio, Reed and his cohorts retreated into the vague, smothered sonic atmosphere, at once claustrophobic and distant, of recordings made before they were born. The result is one of rock's most distinctive sounding LPs on every level.
"Sunday Morning" starts VU&N off on its lightest and brightest note - a pure piece of pop genius and as inoffensive a song as one could ask for. "I'm Waiting for the Man" quickly turns things around, however, with its straightforward tale of drug deals and their resulting paranoid frenzy. "Femme Fatale," one of Nico's vocals, is a restrained analysis of a poor boy snared by a bad girl, while "Venus in Furs," one of the album's true highlights, blends Asiatic droning and a thundering bass behind an almost wistful ode to a sadomasochistic relationship. "Run, Run, Run" is a solid rocker, "All Tomorrow's Parties" a sad story of harrowing beauty.
Side two of the original LP keeps things moving. The self-explanatory "Heroin" almost maddens in its insistent poker-facedness, neither exalting nor damning the drug but simply describing its use and effects for seven hypnotic minutes. "There She Goes Again" retries the no-good woman theme, this time effectively voiced by Reed over a rough and ready R&B groove. "I'll Be Your Mirror" is a pretty and hopeful track wisely given to Nico; "The Black Angel's Death Song" marries Dylanesque free-form lyrics to a mind-numbing viola; and "European Son to Delmore Schwartz" wags the dog - rather excessively, I daresay - with a six-minute coda of merciless cacophony.
Individual tracks can't really give an effective or accurate picture of VU&N; the album must be heard as a whole for its depth, variety and astounding creativity to sink in. If you've somehow missed hearing this classic recording until now, rest assured it's more than worth your time, attention and money.
where it all started November 19, 2006
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
with lou reeds lyrics and cales musicianship this is the first album by one of the most underappreciated bands in history, this album contains VU's most recognized song, heroin and other greats such as there she goes again, the black angels death song, venus in furs,and Run Run Run, it took me a while to accept nico's singing but i still enjoy femme fatale and all tommorows parties, the only songs i dislike are europeon son and i'll be your mirror
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| | |