#21

To be fair, I lost my own edge some decades ago, which is probably why Loaded is my favourite

1 Like
#22

This one is 10/10, White Light White Heat is 9/10, self-titled is 10/10, Loaded is 8/10

Good band

#23

One of the first really formative albums for me as a teenager, used to listen to it constantly and be very pleased with how alternative I thought I was.

Barely ever listen to it anymore, but I know that if I did it would still sound almost as good as it did the first time I stuck it on. Probably more of an 8/9 than a 10 cos I’ve always thought that it trails off a little bit towards the end, but I’m going 10 without any real guilt.

2 Likes
#24

Probably good job the Smiths didn’t win all things considered.

Think this is an astonishing album, although I’ve rarely listened to it as a whole I am overly familiar with most of the songs.

I like the songs more than I love them, but it’s an incredible piece of work and probably given its historical context is even more impressive. Not to mention how good it still sounds all these years later.

From a personal point of view, it’s an 8, although it probably deserves more than that.

#25

I still find it mind blowing that VU & Nico was released before Sgt. Pepper’s. I alwasy thought it was a 70’s album.
Imagine the shame you’d feel about going on about Pepper’s being revolutionary in a world where Venus in Furs existed. :man_shrugging:

2 Likes
#26

I remember buying cassettes of this and ‘Pauls Boutique’ in summer of 1994. Played the shit out of them and whenever I listen to them now there’s a little bit of me that’s transported to my bedroom in cov on a hot summers day.

When it comes to rock music pretty much everything I love can be traced back to this, it’s basically an index of the various possibilities for alternative guitar music of the last 50 years.

Also, the amount of rock lyricists whose lyrics still work when read off of the page are few and far between but ‘I’m Waiting For The Man’ is absolutely in that category, yes it’s grim but just sizzles with life, funny too (love Lou’s delivery of the line ‘hey white boy, you chasin’ our women around? / Oh pardon me sir, it’s furthest from my mind…’) It was mind-blowing in the mid 90’s, can’t imagine what it must have been like hearing it in 1967.

10/10

7 Likes
#27

Struggle to think of anything as lo-fi as this record that has such character. It’s a fantastic listen start to finish. So much swagger, Reed & Nico have such iconic vocals, the bass is rumbly and huge, the guitars are scattered and amazing. Multiple stop-you-in-your-tracks moments, still.

This came out in the 60s ffs. Absurd. 10.

3 Likes
#28

It’s an obvious ten and one of the most brilliant and important records of all time. I listened to it for the first time in a while recently and it still blew me away even 30 odd years after I first heard it. Debut albums are usually one idea, done well if you are lucky. What is amazing about The Velvet Underground and Nico is how they came right out the blocks with that ‘always different, always the same’ thing that even great bands usually take ages to develop.

If you pick almost any two songs off the album at random you will hear two things that really shouldn’t belong on the same record but which are somehow unmistakably by the same band (and both great).

It has that ‘impact’ from its sound, which still sounds pretty radical now (and imagine what it sounded like at the time) but backs it up with amazing songwriting. There are perfect little pop songs like Sunday Morning, I’ll be Your Mirror and Femme Fatale - so perfectly structured that you can imagine almost anyone covering them - and weird, experimental things like Black Angel’s Death Song and European Son. You’ve got unflinchingly direct and harrowing things like Heroin and wonderfully enigmatic songs like All Tomorrow’s Parties (what a great song that is - I still don’t feel I’ve got to the bottom of it). There’s a singalong stomp about buying drugs and a dirge about sadomasochism. What more do you want?

24 Likes
#29

I don’t know how anyone could listen to Femme fatale and think it was rubbish :man_shrugging:

6 Likes
#30

In the Summer of 1995 I was 15. I went on holiday and read the Buddha of Suburbia and listened to this record for the first time. Endlessly on repeat. When I got back to the UK I stopped listening to all of my Nirvana albums. I went to town and bought some herbal cigarettes. I starting hanging out in cafes eating carrot cake. I began to wear black polo-neck jumpers and brown corduroy flares. I joined the Socialist Workers Party.

That’s the sort of record this is. Revolutionary. Despite eliciting such high-levels of twattery from the young me I still think this album is a 10.

7 Likes
#31

Pretty much exactly this, except I gave it an 8

4 Likes
#32

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, I was about 17 and we got high and then listened to I’m Waiting For The Man cos my mate thought doing that after doing drugs would be really cool. I wasn’t particularly impressed by the tune.

A year or two later, it’s freshers week. I’m sat in my mates room, while he and another guy played video games. I was sat behind the tv so couldn’t actually see what they were doing. I wasn’t unhappy though, cos I was really stoned and he’d put on some tunes so I could just zone out.

I can’t remember if he played the full album or if we were listened to something else first but anyway, on comes Heroin. It’s quite a long track at 7 minutes, and it really uses the time available to build in speed and in to a squealing chaotic noise. At first, it’s quite gentle and melodic. The tempo shifts are extreme. Eventually, it sounds like they’re trying murder the instruments. I’d heard a lot of brutally heavy metal by that age, but I’d never heard anything like this. I mean seriously, what the fuck. By the time it finishes my heart was absolutely pounding and my head was rushing like crazy.

It was a gloriously intense experience, but not the kind I felt any need to repeat, so I didn’t investigate further.

18 months later, I see someone on DiS mention that Spotify has opened up and can now be downloaded and used by anyone. I download it and at some point over those first couple of weeks, VU & Nico was one of the albums I decided to check out, in awe at my new ability to listen to classic albums in full rather than piecing together the track list and hoping all the tracks were on youtube

And of course, after I’d listened to the entire thing a couple of times, I thought it was 10/10 absolutely genius

3 Likes
#33

I got into it when I was 17, around the time I discovered the Pixies. Heroin was like nothing I’d ever heard before, it’s an incredible piece of art.

It’s not something I listen to much now but I would enjoy it if I did, especially the first half, which is unbelievable. Sunday Morning/Femme Fatale/Venus in Furs/Heroin are absolutely stone cold tunes

1 Like
#34

Just listened again and can assure you it’s possible to think that song is rubbish.

2 Likes
#35

What a clown!

1 Like
#36

Yeah, was just thinking about this and all the bands I loved growing up & how much they owe;

Bowie, Roxy Music, Japan, Joy Division, Jesus & Mary Chain, Spacemen3/Spiritualized, Galaxie 500, Ultra Vivid Scene & a million others

Even one of Morrissey’s most famous lyrics ’I would go out tonight/ but I haven’t got a stitch to wear’ is a direct rip from ’what costume shall the poor girl wear/to all tomorrow’s parties’ and the rest of the lyric

1 Like
#37

Pretty similar for me. Was mad in to it for a time but don’t listen to it much now. Don’t begrudge its classic status, but in terms of pure enjoyment for me it’s an 8.

#38

doesn’t matter, it will be cancelled anyway

14 Likes
#39

Despite loving this album I dont think I have heard any others of theirs, gonna have a listen this afternoon

#40

Used to listen to this with my headphones in when trying to get to sleep… would always wake up during black angels death song, which is nice.

10/10
ViF, Sunday Morning, I’m waiting for the man amongst the greatest songs I’ve ever heard.

Initially got into them via that tyre advert, obviously.

1 Like