The 500 - #110 - Loaded - The Velvet Underground

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by New York-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

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Album: #110
Album Title: Loaded
Artist: The Velvet Underground
Genre: Rock, Pop, Proto Punk
Recorded: Atlantic Studios, New York, USA

Released: November, 1970
My age at release: 5
How familiar was I with it before this week: A couple of songs
Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #242, dropping 132 spots

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Sweet Jane

As a teen, I became an avid record shopper. I worked part-time jobs from the age of 14 and always set aside money for my weekend trips downtown to the record stores, especially the used bins at Dr. Disc. Discovering music felt like a pursuit, almost a sport.

Teenage friendships are always a little competitive. We wanted to win at sports, board games, cards, and, perhaps most importantly, we wanted to be the first to uncover a new band. There was real status in putting a record on the turntable at a house party and having it win over the room. It was also humbling to put one on and have someone else switch it off mid-song because the crowd had deemed it lame.

A house party from the 1980s - from the internet, but perfectly
reminiscent of the ones I attended.

With that realization came something stranger -- possessiveness. We wanted the bands we had discovered to succeed...but not too much. We wanted our “finds’ to remain reachable by playing at small, intimate venues, and drifting into the pub next door after a concert to mingle with the crowd. In some unspoken way, we wanted them to remain ours, our special thing, shared only among those who were "in the know".

Marillion, a band I discovered in 1983 was one of those
bands I wanted to keep within my circle of friends.

When a new record from one of “your” bands hit the shelves, it usually came with a complication. A single might slip onto the radio, or a video would start popping up on MuchMusic (Canada's version of MTV). Of course, you were happy to have new material and you wanted the record to sell well enough to keep the band afloat and fund another tour. But what you didn’t want was a hit. Not a real one.

In 1985, Marillion had its first bona-fide hit with Kayleigh.
I was excited for them, but also worried it meant mainstream popularity.

Nothing triggered indignation faster than seeing that music escape your circle. If someone from another clique, one with, in our estimation, terrible taste, suddenly showed up wearing that band’s T‑shirt, it felt like a violation. The voice in your head would scream "Poser!", "Tourist!", "Bandwagon Jumper!" You’d known about this band for years. You’d earned the knowledge that only comes from discovering a rare EP in a dusty record shop or late‑night listens dissecting the lyrics from one of their deepest cuts. Their sudden popularity in the commercial world didn’t feel like success; it felt like theft.

Loaded, the fourth studio release from The Velvet Underground, was conceived as an album full of hits. The band, already close to fracturing, and effectively doing so after the record came out, had been pushed by Atlantic Records to write songs with clear commercial potential. The title works on multiple levels. It is a nod to the slang term (loaded) for intoxication on alcohol or drugs, and a more literal raison d’etre...deliver an album "loaded" with songs that might top the charts.

The Velvet Underground in 1970. (l-r) Doug Yule, Lou Reed,
Sterling Morrison and Maureen (Moe) Tucker.

It didn’t succeed, at least not in the way Atlantic Records had hoped. None of the three singles released from Loaded managed to crack the Top 40. What the band did create, however, was an enormously enjoyable pop record and one that moves easily and pleasantly through multiple genres. It has also steadily grown in stature over time. In retrospect, Loaded sounds less like a failed bid for commercial relevance and more like a quiet triumph, its reputation solidified by the acclaim of critics and its high placement (#110) on Rolling Stone Magazine’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time 2012 list.

Musically, Loaded casts a wide net and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it repeatedly in preparation for this blog post. The album moves comfortably between straightforward rock and roll and gentler pop, drawing heavily on early‑'60s radio sounds that Lou Reed, the band’s primary vocalist and leader, clearly absorbed as a listener long before he became a songwriter. There are traces of garage rock in the lean guitar work, folk‑rock in the conversational vocals, simple chord progressions, and even a touch of country and soul in the album’s looser rhythms and warm harmonies. Unlike earlier Velvet Underground records, which often leaned into confrontation or abstraction, Loaded feels grounded in familiar genres. It’s an album that sounds intentionally approachable, as if the Velvet Underground were testing how close they could move toward the mainstream while still sounding unmistakably like themselves.

Lou Reed played his final show with the Velvet Underground on
August 23, 1970 - before Loaded was released.

So, I can’t help but wonder if there was a teenager like me in 1970. Someone who had discovered The Velvet Underground with their 1967 debut (#13 on The 500), who had grown alongside them through White Light/White Heat (#293) and the self‑titled third record (#316). When that imaginary teen first heard the pop sensibilities creeping into Loaded, did he/she worry that tourists and poseurs and bandwagon jumpers from high school were about to start sporting Velvet Underground T‑shirts, absent‑mindedly humming the melody to Sweet Jane? I want that Velvet fan to know something: You’re not alone. The 1985 version of me feels your pain.

The 500 - #293 - White Light / White Heat - The Velvet Underground

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #293

Album Title: White Light/White Heat

Artist: The Velvet Underground

Genre: Noise Rock, Experimental Rock, Art Rock

Recorded: Mayfair Sound, New York City

Released: January, 1968

My age at release: 2

How familiar was I with it before this week: Not at all

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #272 (moving up 21 spots)

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist:  White Light/White Heat

I am delighted to welcome a guest blogger to write about White Light/White Heat, the second studio release by New York City rock band The Velvet Underground. It is the second time I have introduced a guest blogger whom I have never met in person, the first being two years ago when Facebook friend Karen Snell stepped in with a post about PJ Harvey’s Rid Of Me.

This time it is another social media friend whom I have yet to meet personally. Using the pseudonym, Various Artists, he hosts a website, blog and podcast under the banner My Life In Concerts. It is a multi-media diary of experiences attending concerts in the Southwestern Ontario region between 1975 and the present.

After reading a couple of his blog posts, it became apparent the author and I have much in common. We are both Londoners of about the same age, with a love of music who (independently of each other) chronicle our interests through blogging and podcasting.

This summer, we chatted about our interests in music and, generally, about our blogging pursuits. About five weeks ago, Various Artists posted a piece about seeing John Cale, formerly of The Velvet Underground, perform in London in 1983. I asked if he would consider guest blogging for the upcoming VU record and he agreed. Here it is.

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I heard Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side on the radio for the first time in early January, 1973. It was life-changing.

From the song’s New York underground demimonde subject matter to its slow, cool, jazzy sound to Reed’s Sprechgesang vocals, it was unlike anything I had ever heard. It was hugely impactful to a young bored-in-the-burbs misfit who found the world and sound of this record intriguing.

It kicked off a life-long love of the music of Lou Reed. However, it wasn’t until 1974 that I found out that Reed had previously been in a 1960s group called The Velvet Underground.

Over the next few years, as I delved more deeply into rock’s history -- especially its “alternative” history—I became increasingly fascinated with everything I read about this way-ahead-of-its time, quintessential NYC band in tandem with a growing obsession with Andy Warhol’s life, art, and milieu, especially his silver ‘60s Factory period that the Velvets initially sprung from.

Warhol, second from left, with The Velvet Underground

I was learning about all this while also reading up on the nascent, contemporary downtown New York punk rock scene that was unfolding in the then-mid-70s.

I was dying to hear what the VU sounded like, which was characterized as dark, abrasive, arty, confrontational music wedded to lyrics with highly transgressive themes. In other words, it was right up my alley.

But it was almost impossible to access their records at that time and I knew no one who owed any. I had an idea in my head of what they might sound like. But I could only guess.

The Velvet Underground (1968)

When I finally got to hear the Velvets in early 1979, I was baffled. It was their largely sparse, introspective, almost folk-ish self-titled third album that became my entry into their music. It was followed quickly by Loaded, their final LP from 1970: a snappy’ n’ catchy collection of pop-rockers. While I immediately adored both albums, they weren’t anything at all like what I was expecting.

Instead, 1968’s White Light/White Heat -- their most menacing, malevolent and uncompromising release -- was the album I had been expecting to hear.

I finally got to purchase and listen to their hugely influential 1967 debut—The Velvet Underground and Nico, my favourite album of all time—upon its Canadian reissue in the spring of 1982, with WL/WH being reissued early in ’83. It seems almost everyone in my music circle was picking up and listening to these reissues while reading Jean Stein and George Plimpton’s oral history of Warhol Superstar Edie Sedgwick, Edie: An American Biography.

The song styles on the debut can be broken down into three categories: discordant experimentation with taboo lyrics (The Black Angel’s Death Song, Heroin, etc.); gentler, reflective material (Sunday Morning, I’ll Be Your Mirror, etc.); and the straight-ahead rockers (I’m Waiting for the Man, There She Goes Again, etc.)

The band then went on to make a trio of albums, with each focusing on one of those three styles.

WL/WH is the dark, paranoid, speed-freak noisefest and boundary pusher. It also takes a lot of cues from free jazz: it’s more improvisational and closer to their live performances of that time than their debut.

And no matter how much music changes, this is an album that will NEVER pass as Easy Listening. Particularly Side Two.

Multiple versions of White Light/White Heat purchased
by Various Artists throughout the years.

With Nico gone and Reed firing Warhol as their manager (although he was back again for the album’s black-on-black cover design), the Velvets hurtled headfirst into the extremes of the band’s sound and preoccupations.

Reed stated that he purposefully wanted to go "as high and as hard as we could”, while John Cale has said it was a “very rabid record” and “consciously anti-beauty." However, the resulting over-amped blur was not exactly what the group members had wanted either. While they were going for loud and aggressive, the high levels of distortion and compression were more the result of production naivete and error.

Lou Reed (left) and John Cale

Regardless, the corrosive-sounding results have influenced noiseniks, feedbackers, and avant-gardists for years, from No Wave bands through Sonic Youth and beyond.

The focus on extremes extends to the LP’s subject matter as well, which was pretty controversial for the late ‘60s. Subjects range from descriptions of euphoric, amphetamine-fuelled adrenaline (the title cut), a smacked-out orgy among drag queens and sailors (Sister Ray); a dead girlfriend (I Heard Her Call My Name); an operation gone horrifically wrong (Lady Godiva’s Operation); a macabre tale of manslaughter (The Gift), and the anticipation of a female orgasm (Here She Comes Now), the album’s only pensive moment).

1968 magazine ad promoting the record

When the band released this album in early 1968, it was so out-there that it fared even worse than its predecessor, barely scraping into the bottom of the US Top 200. This was the antithesis of the peace-and-love hippy vibes of the time (although I love the late 1960s music from both coasts).

While it sold little in its time, it has since gone on to sell half-a-million copies and win critical acclaim over the decades while laying the groundwork for punk and more discordant rock that followed.

Once unavailable, there are now box set and deluxe editions of the album. For a certain type of musician and person, WL/WH will continue to be an inspirational touchstone.

There is a famous quote from Brian Eno: "The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band." Actually, the first album sold a bit more than that, but his point is taken.

Lou Reed and John Cale both moved on to successful, idiosyncratic careers, with Reed dying in 2013. Meanwhile, Cale also went on to produce a number of classic LPs from Patti Smith, The Stooges, and others, and is about to turn 80. He’s soon releasing a new album and going on a celebratory tour. Congrats, John!

Highly Recommended Viewing: Todd Haynes superb 2021 documentary, The Velvet Underground.

The 500 - #316 - Self Titled - The Velvet Underground

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: # 316

Album Title: Self Titled

Artist: The Velvet Underground

Genre: Alternative Rock, Art Punk, Post-Punk

Recorded: TTG Studios, Los Angeles, California

Released: March, 1969

My age at release: 3

How familiar was I with it before this week: Not at all

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, #143 - moving up 173 spots

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Candy Says

"Candy says,
I've come to hate my body
And all that it requires in this world"

These lyrics begin the opening track, Candy Says, on the 1967, self-titled third record by New York-based, experimental rock band The Velvet Underground. The song was written by vocalist, guitarist and primary songwriter Lou Reed. It is told from the perspective of a transgender woman and is based on Candy Darling. Darling was, like The Velvet Underground, part of  a clique of performers and artists promoted by Andy Warhol in the mid-60s.

The feeling being described by the speaker is called gender dysphoria, the sensation of discomfort experienced by people whose gender identity differs from the sex assigned to them at birth or their sex-related, physical characteristics.

I am far from an expert on topics related to gender identity and expression but, as an elementary school educator, I am becoming better informed and increasingly more compassionate. A common mantra in my profession is "Maslow before Bloom", which promotes the notion that educators must ensure  most of the conditions presented in Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs are met before a child can begin to achieve the learning objectives set out by Benjamin Bloom's Taxonomy. (See graphic below).

Simply put, a child can not be expected to remember, understand, apply or analyse information if their basic physiological, safety and belonging requirements have not been met. Consequently, my colleagues and I prioritize each student's needs in order to maximize their success. As one might expect, this differs from building to building and from student to student. At one school, a breakfast program may be required to ensure every child has access to a nutritious meal.. At another, the establishment of a Gay/Straight Alliance within the student body might provide a sense of belonging to a student who is silently coming to terms with their own sexuality.

As I listened to The Velvet Underground this week, I tried to imagine the New York City art scene in the late-60s. Andy Warhol's Superstars and the infamous Factory buildings (an art studio that moved to four locations in Manhattan between 1963 - 87) have been featured in many films, both fictional and documentaries. Consequently, it wasn't a big leap of imagination for me to visualize this strange, psychedelic artistic space filled with a wild collection of eclectic, free-spirited and drug-fueled characters. David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Liza Minelli, Debra Harry, Jean-Michel Baquiat and, of course, Candy Darling and The Velvet Underground made The Factory their home and base of artistic, social and sexual discovery.

Warhol in one of the studio spaces at The Factory, NYC

In a way, Warhol was also recognizing the importance of Maslow before Bloom. The Factory was a "safe space" for many people who often did not feel they “belonged, including those whom Warhol called "sexual radicals". Thus, artistic expression flourished. Not all of it was good, but some of it - such as this week's record - was exceptional.

A "Happening" at The Factory

The story of Candy Darling, who died of lymphoma at the age of 29, also made me think about the French idiom, "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" ("the more things change, the more they stay the same". We  have come a long way since gays and trans-people existed in a hostile world -- save a few, progressive, non-judgmental collectives in major cities. Yet hostility toward them persists amid growing societal tolerance.

Nearly 240 anti-LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer) bills have been filed in the United States this year -- most of them targeting trans-people. Educators still often hear hateful, vitriolic criticism of even our efforts to provide a sense of safety and belonging for these students. Candy Darling was, according to her biographer Cynthia Carr, relentlessly bullied in high school and, at age 16, a group of high-school boys tried to lynch her.

Darling and Warhol (1971)

I am proud of many things in my 25-year teaching career. My math and literacy instruction skills have advanced significantly and I even have a pretty good handle on the science and dance curriculum -- two subjects with which I had the least experience.

However, topping all is my expanding capacity for compassion and understanding. I will always put Maslow before Bloom, and I work tirelessly to make every student feel safety and belonging.

"Candy says,

I've come to hate my body

And all that it requires in this world"

Hopefully, the education community will become a refuge for future Candys to feel safer in a harbour of belonging where they can develop and be fulfilled as the human beings they are.