The Velvet Underground & Nico

A rough one to review for me. I love a lot of what Lou Reed made in his career, and I hear the first notes of it here, but I also really didn't like a whole lot of this particular album. Especially didn't enjoy the just chaotic noise of the last two tracks. I want to give it 3 stars for the influence, but in reality, I just didn't enjoy it enough to warrant more than 2.

2.5

I've heard of this band and album. I know how legendary this album is.

Very good

listen, I get it, but it doesn't mean I love it

OK, I get it. Andy Warhol, avant garde, etc... but this is SUCH a difficult listen. I'm surprised it has such cult/classic status. Also, I this may be an unpopular opinion, but I find Nico's vocal sound to be obnoxious.

🥞🥞

It's just like modern art, "art" rock I don't get. Sure there are a few good to very good tracks on here, but a lot of it is just noise. It seems overrated to me. I guess it's good that this exists to influence better artists and albums.

One of the greatest of all time - top 10 for sure. I'll be your mirror is me and my fiancee's song so maybe I'm biased

knew 1 song but the rest were.. fine. there were unnecessary parts but overall its okay

Está bien, pero no me ha resultado la obra maestra que todo el mundo dice que es. Dicen que se nota mucho el trabajo de John Cale: po vale.

When listened to older albums renowned for being experimental and game changing, I sometimes worry that they'll sound dated after decades of iteration on the formula they established. This is not the case with The Velvet Underground & Nico. More accurately, the datedness is part of the appeal. You can see all the rhythmic and instrumental elements of 50s and 60s present here, but stripped for parts and reassembled into new, jagged, unstable shapes. I love the scuzzy, lo-fi nature of the recording. Even on a remastered digital edition it has the feeling of a worn old curiosity pulled out of a dusty bin of an old record shop. Lou Reed and Nico are both excellent and dramatically different vocalists, with Reed bringing a punk swagger to the table and Nico providing a mysterious, ghostly counterpoint. In this single album, you can see the shapes that alternative and independent rock would take in the coming decades, but it still feels so singular that it can't truly be replicated.

its ok

1.5/5 slow and boring

Pretty mid. Not the biggest fan of the sound.

I love track 1. Sounds smooth and airy and I love the vocals. Good intro. I love track 2 too. Its funky and interesting and gets me going. BANGER.

worst one yet this was so bad TwT

Not my style

Sunday Morning felt like a nice welcoming song, while I'm Waiting For My Man is even more energetic. Kinda diggin the lyrics. Femme Fatale felt kinda short, but the vocals are melancholic. I loved it. Not enough words for Venus for Purs. It really woke me up. The instruments did the job. The strings are so expressive, and it really gave that dramatic theming. It's the best I heard of this album for now. The Run Run Run's guitar solos. They are so chaotic and special. Heroin. This is the best track, no doubt. The strings do a really good job depicting the feeling of entering into a rush while consuming heroin, and how the intense doses are deteriorating your body and life, in the song's ending. There She Goes Again is something sad. Speaking about the darkness of prostitution. I'll Be Your Mirror speaks about true feelings, a lover insisting on showing how their partner truly is. It's a lovely tune. European Son is the ending song. It retains the chaos of Run Run Run and Heroin, and includes more percussion. It seemed to influence rock, and honestly, it feels valid to think about it.

you can definitely tell the influences of this band in the album. sounds a lot like a mashup of early Dylan, Stones, etc. I didn't love any of the songs individually, but could recognize the influence

Feels like one of those albums that if you like indie rock and many of its plethora of subgenres, you're supposed to LOVE - I don't think I quite love it in that way, but like it quite a bit. Sunday Morning is an excellent opener. There are some little instrumental parts of this that are really great, like the droning violin on Venus in Furs and the pianos on All Tomorrow's Parties. A few songs that are just really ordinary 60s rock though as well, like Run Run Run. Nico even has some nice moments even though her voice still isn't my favorite (Femme Fatale in particular). Hard to deny the influence of this even if I'm not quite fawning over it like all the cool kids.

I am tired, I am weary I could sleep for a thousand years A thousand dreams that would awake me Different colours made of tears

I know this is legendary, but I think I need to give it a few more runs to get it.

Name two velvet underground songs. Bet you can't. Listen to this album. You still can't. Do some drugs. Now try. Still can't? Ok, but now you're high and listening to the velvet underground, which is the correct way to listen to this.

A lot of my favorite music can trace influences back to this album, either directly or indirectly. So ya, this is an easy 5 stars

Absolute classic. Got this for Christmas in 93 at the same time as Syndicate for the Amiga - and listened to it on repeat whilst spending hours playing the game and the two are forever intertwined for me. Great album. Love the Nico tracks. But Heroin one of the greatest songs ever. Would give it a 10 if I could.

The Velvet Underground & Nico I love how this lures you in with the sweetly naive and childlike sound of Sunday Morning, despite it actually being about paranoia, before descending into the squalid urban drug buying tale of I’m Waiting for the Man, with its unrelenting, driving, droning guitar and piano, rightly a rock classic. The quality of song doesn’t relent over the remaining 40-odd minutes. Femme Fatale’s vaguely sinister Mittel-Europa do-wop is excellent and Venus in Furs is of course absolutely superb, a brooding, sharp edged, Middle-Eastern infused ode to S&M. I’ve come to love Run, Run, Run over the years, I love the pared back groove and the mixing of drug taking and religion in the lyrics, with Reed’s very Neil-esque guitar. All Tomorrow’s Parties is yet another stellar song, closing the first side with an undeviating, droning, dissonant inevitability, augmented by Nico’s strange tone and amelodic brilliance. Heroin is yet another fantastically great song, building to a frenzied squall of guitar and viola, mirroring the depiction of heroin use in the lyrics. There She Goes’s jangly upbeat 60s pop is brilliantly sequenced after the freneticism of Heroin, although of course played through the lens of Lou Reed’s dirty mind. I’ll Be Your Mirror is another song I’ve really come to love, providing another little left turn into a relatively direct, sincere and delicate love song. The Black Angel’s Death Song is another great bit of sequencing after I’ll Be Your Mirror, a discordant, psychedelic exercise in noise, disjointed words and discomfort. European Son is another great song, with feedback and distortion swirling around a superbly relentless bass line, the whole song casting forward to White Light/White Heat. It’s quite a mad album for 1967 set against what bands on the West Coast were doing and the prevailing summer of love psychedelic whimsy and acid rock tedium. It’s a cliche to say it’s ahead of its time, but its influence is undoubtedly gargantuan, and crucially it lives up to its reputation, and for me it's one of those albums that seems to get better and better the more I listen to it, with it’s crude and distorted production a genuine strength, feeding into the squalid New York Basement atmosphere of the whole album. Straightforward 5. 🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌 Playlist submission: Could be every song, but I’ll go I’m Waiting for the Man

This flits from more straightforward 60s rock to art-rock to lounge balladry, but all infused with the sinister. 'Venus is Furs' is a towering achievement and probably the most perfect collision of John Cale's unsettling viola against Lou Reed's droning guitar, and portrait of 'non-mainstream' characters. But from start to finish this is full of gems. And I love the euro-lounge of the emotionless Nico on 'Femme Fatale', the presence of whom adds a mesmerising tuetonic austerity to proceedings (including on the regally sad 'All Tomorrow's Parties'). The combination of elements on this album is as bizarre as it is unmatched. It's VU's magnum opus, it's their Sgt Pepper - it's completely evolved from most 60s rock. And yet it's their debut. Marvelous.

Influential album from VU

Oh so that’s why guys are like that! I hope to never hear Nico sing again for the rest of my life! I did like all tomorrows parties tho

Favorite song: Heroin

It was ok. Had a few vibe-y songs, but not really my speed

hmm das einzige lied was mir gefallen hat war femme fatale. irgendwie bisschen mittelalter stimmung & am ende pure noise pollution

6/10. El primer tema es muy bueno. Por lo demás hasta ahora viene siendo bastante repetitivo. Igualmente todo lo relacionado a este disco me atrae, me interesa conocer más sobre la historia relacionado, ya que es un álbum muy reconocido y popular.

Andy Warhol created some truly iconic album covers - alongside “Sticky Fingers,” this one is probably the best known. I still find the idea of incorporating tactile elements - in this case, the banana peel - into the cover particularly striking (even though there have been many imitators since then, though none nearly as successful). Consequently, the Velvet Underground - already generating so much visual buzz - also enlisted a supermodel to accompany them in the studio and on stage. There’s music on the album, too, but in my view, it doesn’t even come close to matching the image I just described. Lou Reed’s outlandish ideas come through here pretty much unfiltered, which doesn’t sound nearly as good as that sentence does. Large sections are original, but by no means catchy. And Nico? Well, she certainly isn’t singing on the album because of her brilliant vocal technique... My recommendation: while listening to “Sunday Morning,” slowly peel the banana, drink an espresso, smoke something if you like, and then switch to a later Lou Reed album in good time!

Very old. Sounds like The Rolling Stones from the same era.

An album where the influence is both undeniable and transcends genre. Psych rock, indie, acoustic, folk, garage, even ambient drone. It's all here and impossible to dismiss. Such a fascinating listen that I had to start it all over again after the final track, and one that stays with you long afterwards. Just timeless, to the point where you almost forget it was made in the late-60s. Favourite track: Heroin Least favourite track: N/A

awesome stuff and an iconic cover (top 5 all time for me). I don’t really know what Nico was doing but oh well I guess

A classic, deservedly so. If “Waiting for the Man” doesn’t get you to four stars, what will?

Какие-то странные дела происходят в этом подземелье, становится жутковато

Эпохально, от музыки до обложки. От скоморохов Уорхолла до одной из самых влиятельных рок-групп в истории одним альбомов. Heroin - шедевр, идеальная музыкальная иллюстрация прихода, находка с ускорением и замедлением просто гениальна. Инструментал в Venus in Furs и Sunday Morning восхитителен. Остальные треки тоже интересно звучат. Если б в списке было 100 альбомов, он должен был бы быть здесь. Ах да, совсем забыл про Нико. И правильно.

База. Точно не ниже пяти.

Первый раз послушал альбом 3 года назад и ваще не выкупил. Сейчас же, и переслушав больше музыки, в частности из 60-х, и после прослушивания сольника нико, больше им проникся.

оч попсовый, но все равно великолепный альбом velvet underground, ставлю 4.5

Favourite Songs: Venus In Furs Heroin European Son

Listened to this album a few months back, enjoyed some of it, but wasn't a big fan of some other songs on it. Sunday morning is catchy but for some reason it pisses me off.

Bra! Massor med klassiker och coola Nico som drar upp betyget. Definitionen av coolt band.

There is something undeniably cool about this album. It makes you want to bob your head and dance about. Maybe take a walk and take in the harsh beauty of life. High 4.

More influential than good. Can't give an album with "Sunday Morning" and "I'm Waiting For The Man" one star, but having to listen to Nico makes me want to. 2/5 stars

It's absolutely roasting in the UK right now. This definitely has about as much energy as me. "I am tired, I am weary, I could sleep, for thousand years!" I've seen this album lots of places over the years, I am aware of it's status and the scenes it's reported to have influenced and created. I am reviewing this based on the album not the legacy. 1) *** [Sunday Morning] - Dreamy, hazy start. 2) ** [I'm waiting for the man] - Jazzy. Feels a bit one tone. Piano is rhythm instrument here. Bassline is tidy. 3) * [Femme Fatale] - No. These vocals ain't it - not sure if it's the recording quality or the voice cracking. Beach boys style backing vocals. 4) ***** [Venus in Furs] - Folky, tribal, drone, hypnotic - best so far. 5) ** [Run, Run, Run] - Bluesy rock, sounds of it's era. The guitar solo is - something?! The drums sound really hollow. The bassline carries this. 6) * [All Tomorrows Parties] - Fun piano lick, I can't get on with Nico at all. The lead guitar jangles about discordantly. Too monotone to be this long. 7) *** [Heroin] - The drums that slowly build like a racing heart is fantastic. Feels a bit like a drugged up U2. 8) *** [There she goes again] - This sounds a lot like Dylan. It's an inoffensive 60s rock track. A coherent guitar solo spotted in the wild. The tempo shift towards the end is fun. 9) * [I’ll Be Your Mirror] - Nothing going on here apart from Nico. I am sorry Nico. I won't let you be my eyes. I'd rather risk the bad luck and break this mirror. 10) *** [The Black Angel’s Death Song] - Yes! The discordant strings are back. Feels like a cowboy fighting a demon? 11) [European Son] Energetic bassline. They literally threw the kitchen sink at this. Guitar is rancid. It's all over the place. It's a trainwreck. Overall - 2.2 without Nico it would hit a 3. I can see how it was an influence for many, but I won't return again most likely. On the car playlist : [Venus in Furs] [The Black Angel's Death Song]

Eh this was a weak 3. Wasn’t life changing and wasn’t horrible. Won’t be revisiting

sucks

Was a bit of an acquired taste for me initially, but this really is as great as many people in music magazines and on the interweb told me before.

5/5

Everything about this album is icons from the cover to the track list that includes some of their better known tracks, from the airiness of Sunday Morning to the intensity of Venus in Furs. A classic.

I was gonna say this sounds like some 60s shit and it is. Can we stop with the soft rock now plz

I’ve been liking this more every listen. I’m more tapped into its frequency now, although I still think it loses its way in the middle third. Sunday morning is still sublime

Great album. There's a reason this one's on so many all time lists. There are no hits on this record but it's my kind of weird. 1967 is the best year for music in my opinion. Dig it.

Very complex and deep album that touches on deep topics like drugs, death, and more. The lyrics to this album were very well written and complicating (“The Black Angel’s Death Song” had the most complicated lyrics in my opinion). Not usually my type of music but my favorites were “Heroin” and “I’ll Be Your Mirror”. The song I really don’t like is the song “Venus In Furs” because the song’s meaning was weird to listen to. I will give it a 3/5 but maybe when I get further in this challenge my music taste will be more diverse.

I love this one especially Sunday Morning and Venus In Furs

Art rock that is cool just to be cool, but love some of these songs regardless.

So I used to think of this as one of the great classic albums. In the context of 1000 greats, I think the generally misogynistic, talk pop noise rock record including lines like "you'd better hit her" doesn't belong. 3/10

??? Just noise and a guitar

Excepto por alguna que otra canción, fue un plomazo total. Se me hizo casi imposibles de escuchar; creo que no hay momento donde no haya pensado durante cada canción "quiero que termine". Por otro lado, no discuto que Lou Reed sea un buen letrista, pero son pocas las canciones que desde ese aspecto dentro del disco hayan llamado mi atención. Puedo entender lo que el resto escucha en este álbum, pero no es para mí. ↑: Heroin, The Black Angel's Death Song ↓: Femme Fatale, There She Goes Again, European Son

Possibly the greatest album of all time. Never get tired of listening. Amazing songs. The blueprint for alternative music for decades to come. Nothing is cooler.

Insert quote here about how influential this album was.

A beautiful noxious weed in a field of flower power https://youtu.be/B1sbg_C-72c?is=rMv-_a9qoVPOX54X

I’ll be your mirror is obviously a special song, rest of album just so

An all time great on here and the rest of the album is pretty strong

I dont like this

Classic

I like the Velvet Underground. I like Lou Reed's voice. I don't particularly like Nico's voice, but she isn't on this all that much. I know and love Sunday Morning. I also recognized Femme Fatale, Heroin, Venus in Furs, and I'm Waiting for the Man.

Bellissime canzoni

reminds me of my sister, ive loved this album for a while already. she used to tell me i had lou reed eyes whatever that means

Need to listen again. I first heard this 20 something years ago. Back then I liked it but felt it tailed off towards the end. However, this time I thought it was shite. Maybe because I was on a long car journey with no air con. So I will revisit

The third Velvet Underground album I've had on this list, and it's 3/3 in terms if pretty rubbish albums. Some ok parts, some crap parts and some god-awful parts. The end of Heroin is like nails on a chalk board and the last track is just nonsense. Uninspiring, turgid and ultimately forgettable. I hope I don't hear any more Lou Reed.

Something to be studied, not necessarily enjoyed.

I Iiked Sunday Morning, Femme Fatale, All Tomorrow’s Parties, There She Goes Again, and I’ll Be Your Mirror. The last two tracks weren’t my cup of tea and they were really hard to listen to. I wouldn’t have expected myself to like 5 songs off this album. This is coming from someone trying to expand their music taste.

5/11 I love the front page, But the songs aren't as good as the cover in my books.

Influential <> a great listen. Veered between OK, through kind of annoying, to super annoying (European Son; shame to end that way).

Given how much I disliked the Nico album, I was really worried about listening to this one. I actually did end up thinking it was pretty good though. I don't know that it's great music, but it's definitely super interesting and groundbreaking music.

Oh god not another Nico album… At least it’s not Yoko Ono, but it’s probably up there with worst collabs of all time. There are some really bad sections in here that just make no sense to me. It sounds chaotic and just messy. I think some songs were fine, but others made me want to rip my head off.

Sometimes boring, often painful to listen to. The music was poor, and neither of those two can sing

Listened to this once many years ago and found it to be just okay. Upon revisiting, I found myself appreciating this a whole lot more. I see the hype now.

Supongo que drogado te debe generar algo Velvet underground. Tal vez algún día lo descubra.

Heel leuk album

straight perfection. cant remember the first time I heard this album but I remember kind of being meh first listen... but here is the thing, this album made me think and think about it constantly. First I was just amazed by the sounds of Heroin, and wanted to listen again to see if I could understand it. So I returned, listened to the album again, and truly appreciated it for what it was. A no skip album, experimental rock back in the day and was completely unknown when it first came out. overall, this is a 10/10 album with no downsides. its easygoing and nice to sit back and listen to. The Velvet Underground will always have a special place in my heart because of this.

A tour de force

timeless melodies, too pretty for what they are talking about

fun

Great album. Heard it many many times. Loaded is my favorite velvet album.

i liked like 50% of this. Just kinda loud honestly

Dit vind ik dus echt een fantastische oude rock plaat.

Classic, easy 5.

Well hello there old friend. We’ve met MANY times before. Easy 5 here. Listen to everything else being released in 1967 and then listen to this. The perfect counterbalance to love and peace. Low fi, dark, magic. It’s the real deal.

I used to listen to this

Didn't add any but its quite nice

too boring and sad for me

nanner

A song about heroin? I thought this was a rock album, not jazz!

Bonkers and brilliant.

4/5 The velvet underground doesn’t get enough credit for what they did for hard and alternative rock. This music is like if NIN was making music 30 years earlier. The guitars sound horrible but they’re raw.

Ouvi esse album no ano de 2022, tinha 14 anos. A faixa que me atraiu foi Femme Fatale, pois eu fui uma adolescente aspirante a uma performance de misandria, eu assistia Gone Girl, recitava seu monólogo "Cool Girl" e consumia conteúdos com tag "femcel" porque considerava celibato não namorar aos 14 anos. Então Femme Fatale era essa faixa que acompanharia essa fase. Conheci o álbum pois era do tipo que procurava pelos clássicos da música, e esse álbum é um clássico, eu adoro toda sua calmaria e sofisticação.

4.5/5

"Everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band" Crazy this came out before Hendrix or Sgt Peppers, when the top charting artist was The Monkees. Everything with rougher edges than "I'm a believer" came from this.

Wasn't really paying attention, but I feel like I understand the hype and what it evokes for people who are die-hard fans. I can see myself enjoying the album while driving on a back country road with the windows down or sitting by a lake and staring out into the horizon, but I'm at my desk, so the whole listening experience went by quickly.

Классика, тёмный поп.

4 notes and it's a five stars

Went into this with demand avoidance thinking it would be underwhelming or overhyped. It sounds primitive but so fundamentally different to popular rock music at the time that I can see how influential it ended up being for grungier 70s/80s punk and rock. Clearly pushed boundaries on subject matter and didn't have a notably weak song. 5 whole stars

Absolute classic. So influential sonically and very risqué for the time. Nico’s lead vocals are a welcome break on Femme Fatale et al. 5 stars, no notes

Probably the most confusing albums for me, not only in this list, but overall from what I have heared in my life, since my first listens years ago. It started a lot of things and tropes that I both like and hate in rock music. I can't decide if I think that Nico's voice and charisma is beautiful or if she creeps the hell out of me. I can't decide if I think that Lou Reed is a genius or one of the phoniest posers in music of 20th century. I can't decide if I think that John Cale is cool creative guy or a talentless liar. I don't know if Heroin is prentious drug propaganda or one of the most haunting songs ever. I don't know if Venus is Furs fascinates me or annoys me. I don't know if I love this band and album or if I hate them. My sincere question to people who actually considers them VU fans - do you feel the same way about this music or you unambiguous in that matter? The rating for this one for me could only be either one or five... I'll go with 5.

One of the most important albums for American music in general, but of course a seminal album of rock and roll. VU's influence continues to this day. This launched three incredible musical careers: Lou Reed, John Cale and Nico. The world is better for it. If we ignore ALL of that, this is still a 5 star album. Run Run Run is maybe the weakest proper song. Heroin can try your patience if you aren't in the mood for the electric viola freakout. The Black Angel's Death Song feels the most of it's time, something like early Dylan or electric Phil Ochs, compared to its timeless siblings. I don't think European Son is anyone's favorite. Still, they're great songs.

Needed more Nico :/

Didn‘t like the Nico album and this is only marginally better…

its a classic but not that good

The ultimate, the seminal rock album, fundamental and wholly essential

An interesting record. I wasn't sure at first, but it grew on me as I could start to understand the shift vs more traditional 60s folk. I feel like I have a glimpse of why this album was so different from the times, but I'll need to give it a few more listens.

Die New Yorker Band nahm ihr Debütalbum 1966 unter außergewöhnlichen Umständen auf: Hauptsächlich entstanden die Aufnahmen in den heruntergekommenen Scepter Studios in New York City, ergänzt durch Sessions in den TTG Studios in Hollywood sowie in den Mayfair Studios in Manhattan. Produziert unter der nominellen Schirmherrschaft von Andy Warhol und – in klanglicher Hinsicht entscheidender – von Tom Wilson, erschien das Album im März 1967 auf Verve Records. Schon das Genre entzieht sich einfachen Etiketten: Art Rock, Proto-Punk und experimenteller Rock greifen ineinander, ohne je akademisch zu klingen. Lou Reed schreibt Texte, die damals radikal tabugebrochen sind – über Heroin, Sadomasochismus, Prostitution und Einsamkeit, vorgetragen mit einer Nüchternheit, die jede Sensationslust unterläuft. Die deutschen Vokabeln der Kölner Sängerin Nico fügen dem Album eine kühle, beinahe gespenstische Distanz hinzu: „Femme Fatale", „All Tomorrow's Parties" und „I'll Be Your Mirror" wirken in ihrer Stimme wie Botschaften aus einer anderen Welt. Demgegenüber steht die aufreibende Intensität von „Heroin" oder „Venus in Furs", bei denen John Cales Viola und Sterling Morrisons Gitarre eine Klangsphäre erzeugen, die bis heute kaum jemand berührt hat. Kommerziell war das Album bei Erscheinen ein Misserfolg – der vielzitierte Aphorismus, jeder der rund 30.000 Menschen, die es kauften, habe selbst eine Band gegründet, trifft seinen Kern besser als jede Chartposition. „I'm Waiting for the Man" und „European Son" zeigen, wie weit das Spektrum dieses einen Albums reicht: von minimalistischem Garage-Rock bis zu freiem Lärm, der Jahrzehnte späterer Avantgarde vorwegnimmt. Kein Album hat die Idee, was Rockmusik sein darf, nachhaltiger erschüttert.

really good. comforting

about as good + influential as it gets

Decent, all around. Wished it got a little bit more funky here and there.

Some of the reviews here are handing out five stars while excusing some of the major flaws in this work. Instruments are played poorly, guitar solo's sound phoned in with no punch, noise walls with no point, out of tempo drums, poor sound quality, singers missing the mark... I am not going to deny its cultural impact, but even in its own moment that wasn't great. All its importance was superimposed later, because art. Someone should do a sociological study on how that happens. Sunday morning, heroin and waiting for my man are good, the rest not so much.

Of course I have heard of TVU and knew this album cover. I am familiar with Lou Reed and Andy Warhol. Despite all of that, I had never listened to one of their albums. For some reason, I had expected noise and chaos. I was very wrong. This album was full of very melodic and rhythmic songs. The topics are timeless and very much in your face, but in a pleasant way. Taking into account this album was released in 1967 - the same year The Stones were on Ed Sullivan. Elvis married Priscilla, The Beatles drop Sgt. Pepper’s, Jimi Hendrix experience is released, Pink Floyd release their debut, and a Monkee met a Beatle……it’s no wonder this album was commercially overlooked. I don’t mind it at all. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised by it.

I LOVE THE COVER ART. But, still, it is a bit too old for my liking. I would rather listen to something a bit more upbeat. There were times where you could only listen a barrage of noises (European son) but there were also other times were the music was so good I'd keep on listening to them forever. But I don't know to what extent my opinion is influenced. You see, people tend to exaggerate the greatness of an album (or any aspect of life) if they fail to truly understand it. This album, in my view, is really impressive, even though I know that I'm a bit too biased by this rule. But I do like not understanding anything; you cannot be wrong about something you don't understand, being protected by ignorance.

way too artsy for me

The song Heroin is........🪷

gotta pay the 1 star nico toll!

classic

Never was a Lou Reed man. I'm still not. I don't really see the influential-ness of this album. It's not unlistenable, but I'm not seeing some sort of amazing epiphany of musical genius that was spewed about on this one.

Alright! I liked a couple songs. Very raw feeling with some of them, lots of interesting instrumentals- some of which shouldn’t be listened to with a headache. 3.5 out of 5? Fav songs were Sunday Morning and Run Run Run.

Alternative rock started with this album. Listen to it, and you understand why this is your favorite rock artist's favorite album. The subject matter turns a little risque, and some of the sounds come off experimental, such as same-tuning all the strings of a guitar or using paper clips on the hammers of a piano, but the voices of Lou Reed and Nico create a definite atmosphere of The Factory. Musically, I'm giving it a fifth star due to its influence. Iconic album cover, BTW.

couple famous songs and the other ones were different to what im used to listen so i really liked it!

This album is a really good example of the small-frame snapshot you get of the history and context of artists from a single work. Warhol had taken the velvet underground into his fold, married their sound with one of his models, and through them found a new way for his factory to get art into the mass market. Unfortunately the wider picture is completely lost when the only exposure to that world is this flop of an album, with its model who can't sing, and complete atonal dissonance.

A mostly pleasant experience. There were a few songs in the back half I have never gotten around to listening too. Some new favourites but a couple that were so hard to sit through as well. Could have dialled back the experimentalism a tad here and there.

I knew most of the songs, often from cover versions, but I'd never listened to the album so this was good. It really is astonishing in the context of the other things being released at the time. Completely unique.

I recently listened to an interview with a very serious music journalist who was trying to put forward the case that the velvet underground were better than the Beatles. Having had 2 albums previously, i could not agree but listened anyway. He (obviously its a he) said this album was that magnus opus and was the best album ever made. I just cant see it. Yes there are songs that are well written, but the drop off between hits and filler is sharp. Lou's voice is still poor and the addition of Nico adds nothing except she was pretty and the lads look like homunculae.

Okaish

I love the album and I don't know why. It's so trippy. I don't know if they were that great or if drugs help them along but it worked.

I have to give this album its due respect for inspiring so much other amazing work that I love. It also has moments where I hear the vision. As a whole I don’t really like it. Heroin is a highlight for sure.

Growing up I was obsessed with the lore surrounding the creation of this album. The perfect example of artists having the freedom to breath the life they want their art to embody, lighting it on fire, and blowing the fire away for others to catch it. Musically sounds pretty dated because of it's classic jangle pop aesthetics and the old timey production techniques they clearly used to make it sound more raw. The but story telling, the uneasy urban vibe each song brings that invites you and horrifies you to explore more corners of the city where you find characters that you come across once and others that leave a mark in your life. I play Sunday Morning to my daughter all of the time, the flow from song to song is nonsensical but works perectly. Now let's get into the Nico part of the album; she's the Fergie of this album, made them more noticible, but not an essencial part of the band in the long run. Classic Warhol Muse. Yet her pressence is not just another one of those characters in the story, Moe couldn't have sung her songs if she wasn't there, Femme, Venus, Parties and Mirror are absolutely essential to the album experience.

Listening session: may 29th, while going for a walk Listened to before: listened to a few songs before Thoughts: one of the most iconic album covers ever in my opinion, and the music is interesting and experimental so I can see why this is influential Favourite tracks: Sunday Morning, Femme Fatale & I’ll Be Your Mirror

This is a holy grail for me, even though I have to admit that I find bananas (as in the fruit) a tad overrated. Their taste and texture are rather meh if you don’t eat them at the perfect stage of your preferred ripeness. In my humble opinion, this is the only even remotely controversial point one could raise when it comes to this ever-stunning piece of musical history. Glad that you can peel the skin off the cover…

klasika 4

Not a TRUE 5-star album - "European Son" is a tough sell - but for the purposes of this website? Absolutely. 4.5/5

Theres 60s sound, but also feels modern.

Brian Eno sums up the importance of this album nicely, paraphrasing, but it might have only sold 30,000 copies, but everyone who bought a copy started a band. Hugely influential.

This makes me very grateful that music has evolved greatly since this came out. An absolute slog to get through, idk how this is considered one of the greats cause it sure isn't, 1/5

Bad... especially European Son

leuk maar ook vaag

The cover art itself gets a 5. This is a true, classic album.

I like it. I don't love it. Bits of it are truly great - Sunday Morning, Venus in Furs, Waiting For My Man. It's a bit too ramshackle to get closer to my heart. The artwork is obviously incredible.

4/5

There are some songs I adore on this album and some I struggle to get through. 3.5

Great influential album.Once again solid songwriting this time with darker themes

The quality of the recording and performance is often just a bit too low quality, but some songs are good.

не плохой, но не зацепил я услышала, почему этот альбом да и сама группа стала одним из переломных моментов в роке

Die nico songs sind alle echt nicht so gut, der rest der songs geht so von okay bis echt gut

liked some songs. not a fan

I love most of the more avant-gardy songs in this (Venus In Furs, All Tomorrow's Parties, The Black Angel's Death Song), EXCEPT European Son. It feels like a missed opportunity.

3.3/5

Top 10 all time albums. If you are reading this and don’t know…shame. Sort it now.

Good, but I couldn't shake the feeling that it sounds dated and that I "should" enjoy it more. Actively unpleasant at times, but kind of the point of the art message

Obviously a massively important and influential album. Whether you find it an enjoyable album will vary. After all, one song was so intense that bar owners banned them from playing it because everyone would leave when they did. Starts with the sound of bells and an ethereal woman's voice and ends with seven minutes of screaming feedback and noise. In between it covers drug use, masochism, death, existential ennui and the like. The songs are droning and so simple. Lou Reed famously said that two chords were all you need and more than three you were playing jazz. It's a Weirdly split album. You have the songs like Boots of Leather and Heroin being all New York Art scene and then Nico's songs standing off to the side with their cool German Caberet. There's nothing else like it, not even in the Velvet Underground's catalogue. Mo Tucker thunders away on the drums in almost tribal ways. John Cale uses a viola like a noise machine, Lou Reed's guitar solos sound, at times, like a chicken scratching and his vocals are more spoken than sung. He was, he claimed later, "the original rapper". But it's hard to imagine where music would be without this strangely perverse album. Punk drew on its DIY aesthetic and shock value, post-punk just absorbed it whole. There's a whole school of noise rock that can trace its origin back to this. At the time no-one really understood it or knew what to do with. Record stores wouldn't sell it, radio stations wouldn't play it. But in the years since it's become one of those albums for which the word "classic" isn't big enough. It's one of the albums that define what rock music actually is.

Meh

This album was different, I wasn’t really a fan.

Very creative and appealing 60s sound but not formulaic. Interesting arrangements and experimental while maintaining musicality.

Meh

3,5/5

Like the guitar riffs & solos. Very of its era and got that distinctive sound. Not a bad album, a few tracks seem slightly filler like. Would listen again.

Trance-like full layers of sound with a variety of instruments, vocal colors, driving rhythms. Psychedelic. Not for me though, except maybe Sunday morning.

started smooth but wtf was up with some of those tracks

better than i remember it to be but meh

This was thrilling and dark and of the era. I think Winston from new girl secretly bumps this. Sadly Heroin was my fav.

I’ve always wanted to love this album because I appreciate what it led to… but instead I’ve always just really liked it. It has a few phenomenal songs (Sunday Morning, Femme Fatale, Heroin), but most the album is just good. Nothing extraordinary. I understand it was revolutionary, but the things that were once revolutionary are normal now. So they have no effect on me.

I think the banana album is titanically important on a historical level, but it’s probably a little overrated as an actual listening experience. That’s not to say it’s bad—Lou Reed’s songwriting talents are on display, and the band makes effective use of Nico’s weird warbly voice. The experimental stuff is not as interesting as some insist it is, but this is an essential album nonetheless.

gracias a adventureland es que escucho the velvet underground y lou reed. pero creo que también por eso mismo gravito más a los otros discos. este es bueno pero creo que si es un gusto adquirido.

Слушабельно

It is outrageous that practically 60 years along, this album still sounds startling. On today’s listen it really struck me how literally jam packed it is with iconic songs across its entirety. It’s hard to believe as side one finishes, that there is still more magic still to come. There’s no point talking about how amazing it was that they achieved this way back in ‘67, because it could have been released any time from then to now and still been a remarkable piece of art. It was one of the first albums I ever bought, and it remains one of the best I own to this day.

Every…single…song. Such a great album.

I FUCKING LOVE THIS ALBUM. FINALLY.

"One of the most influential rock albums of all time." That just says it all. Agreed. If something deserves 6 *s, this would be an example. Goes to 11....

Nice

I have listened to this album hundreds of times over my lifetime; suffice to say one of the greatest albums ever recorded and certainly one of the most influential. I can never get my head around it was recorded in 1966, so ahead of its time. One of only a handful of albums I'm guaranteed to listen to at least every few months. A comfy 5 star!

Hard to overstate how influential this album was to the indie/underground scene. The Nico tracks are pretty underwhelming but everything else holds up super well.

It’s okay, Sunday morning is good. I really wanted to like femme fatale but the distortion does not work for me.

gooddddd

A classic that takes me back to living in Axbridge and playing on repeat whilst spending hours playing championshop manager. Simpler times.

I'm not going with all the hype about this album and all the influence it had on future genres. I just straight up like it.

Hm, anfangs ganz gut wurde es mir am Ende hin zu experimentell

langweilig, wirres Durcheinander, angeblich sehr einflussreich, aber gut anzuhören ist etwas anderes. Nico geht sowieso nicht.

Ich hoffe ich muss nicht noch mehr Nico ertragen. Ansonsten auch lahmes Gedudel

Incredibly important and influential record for the projected future of experimental, alternative and punk rock later on down the line, this probably the only good thing that Andy Warhol has ever made himself be a part of. Yes, it's not for everybody and it's quite messy, but there's a kind of naive beauty to how raw and earnest this whole project is. Definitely a fantastic record that gets better with age.

Nico. Oof

Thanks to this list I've learned that 80% of the time, I really hate the Velvet Underground and especially Lou Reed solo. But like 10-20% of the time, they really hit a note. And most of Lou Reed's career 20% good is on this album, with songs like Waiting for the Man and masterpieces Heroin and Venus in Furs. Femme Fatale is decent. Run Run Run is a great track as well. All Tomorrows Parties another banger. Reed would probably hate this, but tracks like that, Heroin and Venus in Furs definitely sit on my acid rock play list. A lot of the other tracks are forgettable, just OK, but there aren't too many on this album that scream of "too much drugs" rather than "just the right amount of drugs." And no Lou Reed descending into goofiness. It's not perfect, but definitely Reed's best. 4/5

This was ok. Songs were somewhat similar-sounding, but pretty mellow for the most part.

Geen hapklare brok, wel een klassieker voor mij

meh, ni echt mijn ding

Fantastic album

Unique, inspiring, groundbreaking. Sometimes feels warm, sometimes cold. Always good

This is an interesting album. Not polished, often weird, but definitely worth listening to

It's funny that an album where the two singers can't sing at all still sounds good. The Velvet Underground creates a special vibe; it's like Bob Dylan on a trip. While I don't think it offers any musical revelation, it serves as a documentary of its time.

Their first show under Andy Warhol's management was at a psychiatrist's convention in New York. Warhol had been asked to give a lecture. He showed a film instead, and The Velvet Underground played. By most accounts, nobody really noticed. That image stays with me. Not a dramatic confrontation — just radical music, largely ignored, in a room full of people trained to notice things. And yet everyone who bought this album, Brian Eno famously said, started a band. The influence arrived decades late, but it arrived. The album itself is stranger and more varied than I remembered. Lou Reed and Nico trading lead vocals — her deadpan German weight against his Long Island drawl. "Sunday Morning" as a lullaby opener, then "Heroin", then "Venus in Furs". Dark subject matter made strangely accessible. Raw by design, not by accident. 4.5/5 — and the half point is just honesty. The rest is unmistakable.

Love the album cover. This may be influential for a lot of genres and whatnot, but if I am to rate the actual music presented here (and that's what I want to do), then... 😮‍💨 In my ears it ranges from okay (like the opener "Sunday Morning" or "There She Goes Again") to boring (hello, "All Tomorrow's Parties") to annoying as hell (looking at you, "Black Angel's Death Song" and "European Son"). Both vocalists do a bad job and the guitar solos are embarrassing. All in all, I'm afraid there's barely anything that makes me want to revisit this influential classic. 2/5 below average

This album hits like a roller coaster. The highs (Heroin, Waiting For The Man, Sunday Morning) are brilliant but at times the album devolves into chaos which is pretty hard on the ears (European Sun). I definitely like the Nico bits less than the Lou Reed bits

I've heard this album before, and I think it's alright. I definitely liked it more this time around, but I still do not at all get why, it is so praised

There's a reason this is so highly regarded. Excellent and interesting.

its a bit good

Great, great record. It’s almost hard to believe that this was from 1967

La vanguardia suena así

It's got its status for a reason. The Heroin/There She Goes Again/I'll Be Your Mirror 1-2-3 punch is an all timer

This literally my favorite album.

so unique

okk...

I've listened to this album so many times trying to get myself to like it and I just don't. On paper I should love it. I don't know what it is - maybe I just don't like Nico? I'm a big fan of Velvet Underground's other albums without her. Other than Sunday Morning, the rest feels pretty mid.

i love it so much

Old but gold but not my favorite

Kinda overblown in my opinion. I think their association with Warhol and gang raised their status more so than their actual music. Not terrible though.

Majority classics - very 60s but I’m a 60s fan!

I had a hard time with this album. Some of these songs are amazing like "Sunday morning", "I'll be your mirror" and "Femme Fatal". ... But some other are just pretensious bullshit. "European son", "The Black Angel's Death Song" and, dare I say it, "Heroin" are just painfull to listen to. Doesnt help that the production is ABYSMAL. Yeah I know that this album is super influencial, a must hear, a classic, invented music, whatever idc, I think it aged like milk. If this album was released today, nobody would like it. But overall, I dont completely hate it and I can see why its so beloved by music nerds. In paper atleast. Banana/5

🤝

En trea men hade hoppas på mer. Det bästa med skivan är nog omslaget. Jäkla bra omslag dock!

Mytomspunna året 67 igen!

Känns som jag hört alla låtar på skivan tidigare men jag fattar inte hur. Mitt enda minne av att ha lyssnat på Velvet Underground är från limewire-tiden men kan knappast laddat ner en hel skiva då. Det är ett ballt och unikt sound och ett gäng tunga låtar.

ikoniskt

Så coolt! Perfekt att få detta efter ett The Who-album som släpptes samma år, men inte i samma värld. Uttjatat grepp men det står ju i sådan kontrast till allt annat man hört inom dåtidens rock att det är svår att greppa. Och vilka låtar! Är det kanske mitt favoritalbum? Är det ens mitt favoritalbum med VU? Älskar hur som varenda liten del av den: den sladdriga rytmsektionen, migränfiolen, det hårda, det mjuka, det falska, det skalade omslaget, Lou Reed som alltid fick till känslan av att han berättade något just för dig, grova Nico och på det känslan av att "det här kan ju jag göra själv!". Även om vi inte kunde så försökte vi.

Estuvo bien

Just an absolute banger. Ask yourself: How would this be received if released today? It would still be good, which makes it insane for 1967! 5/5

Not bad for 1969. Couple songs too long

On the more alternative albums. Some solid stuff.

I have already heard this album but just listened to it again , i think its the most experimental record to come out in 60s . While it still has that classic pyschedelic sound of the era velvet underground twists that sound up , its way more experimental and way more noisy. Lou Reed and the velvet underground has influenced many a modern rock band with this sound . Despite all the chaos, Nico brings lush feelings with her beautiful vocals ,the two love songs(femme fatale and ill be your mirror) nico wrote which i think are one of the best love songs ever written, she adds a lot to the album, ill be your mirror proves my point, its the peak of love song writing, i dont think there are many songs that can make you feel the way this song does. I dont want to talk about this album like its a completely noisy experimental rock album but its not a classic chill rock album, of course songs like sunday morning are honestly really beautiful, its just that this album has a lot of genres mixed together, while some songs are lush and beautiful, other songs like im waiting for the man, run run run, venus in furs are just crazy they almost sound like a garage rock band with those distorted guitar riffs. Heroin and European Son were some songs that I didnt think it would be possible to be this avantgarde in the record's era the songs are real noisy and weird. This album is for sure one of the most influential albums of all time. Album is definitely as good as everybody says it is . Its an amazing experience to listen to this experimental/art rock record and songs about love and drug use.

do i even need to explain myself? i don't think i do. 10/10 FAVOURITE SONGS: WAITING FOR THE MAN, ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES, HEROIN, I'LL BE YOUR MIRROR, THE BLACK ANGEL'S DEATH SONG, EUROPEAN SON

Meh a tad dreary for me but still ok. SUnday Morning....

Odd but groovy

quando eu era mais novo tinha uma dificuldade absurda em escutar esse até o final, pq achava genuinamente chato (e o loaded é bizarro de bom perto desse) tendo envelhecido um pouco e adquirindo um gosto musical mais complexo, achei pedrada máxima tem uns momentos chatos? claro mas ainda assim, dá pra ver que o velvet underground e a nico tavam completamente a frente do tempo na hora de pensar e compor música, bizarro demais de altíssimo nível

não acho que seja perfeito não. mas definitivamente tá mil anos a frente do tempo e eh um dos albuns mais influentes de todos né. 1967 e os cara fazendo BARULHEIRA de boa qualidade como pode no mais, femme fatale e heroin já valem as 5 estrelas aqui. gosto daquela frase do brian eno lá e quero acreditar que seja vdd. ouvir isso aqui na época deve ter mudado a vida de uma galera. mto bão, como pode

Great album it was amazing I put most of the songs on my playlist my only criticism is why did I get death but in a sound Also for my 3rd day I have got good albums 2 days in a row except my first album

This is in the top echelon of albums to hear before you die. It influences 70/80% of this list? More? I only wish I was one of the 30,000 that started a band….

Enjoyable, art-y.

I wavered a bit on this between a 4 and a 5, but in the end had to see that this really does deserve the hype. Sunday Morning and I’m Waiting for the Man are fantastic openers, and set the tone for creative and fast paced songs throughout. Nico’s occasional vocals have a slightly strange quality to them, but fit well with the eerie sound of songs like I’ll be Your Mirror. It’s experimental, but unlike most albums with that on this list, is still a brilliant and gripping listen (the final two songs aside).

An incredibly influential album that still sounds ahead of its time. Aside from the album’s significance to the development of experimental music, art rock, glam rock, and what was to become alternative rock, it’s an album I really enjoy listening to. There’s so much variety, from the dream-like opener ‘Sunday Morning’ to songs describing the grittiness of life in New York on songs like ‘I’m Waiting for My Man’ and ‘There She Goes Again’ to the hypnotic psychedelia of ‘Venus in Furs’. This really is an album you should listen to before you die.

An incredibly influential and also fantastic album with a lot of stylistic variety. There’s gorgeous dreamy pop (‘Sunday Morning’, ‘Femme Fatale’, ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’), grinding garage rock (‘I’m Waiting for the Man’, ‘Run Run Run’), and more avant-garde offerings like ‘Venus in Furs’, ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’ and ‘Heroin’, three absolute album high-points. The ending is slightly underwhelming (‘The Black Angel’s Death Song’ is my least-favourite track, and ‘European Son’ starts off promisingly but then descends into a mad jam which is just fine); nonetheless the preceding tracks are sufficiently excellent to ensure the album holds onto a 5-star rating.

Yet another "I do not doubt this is a 5/5 for influence and legacy, but it's like a 2.5/5 at best to actually listen to".

Listened to on my Apple AirPods Max. On occasion, Apple Music will give brief descriptions of albums you click on, usually with some commentary peppered in. For ‘Velvet Underground & Nico’, they quote fellow musician Brian Eno in a statement of how the band was not super popular, but was highly inspirational, causing those who did listen at the time to start bands of their own. The description continues about the looseness in feeling from Velvet Underground, how “they didn’t really sound like professionals, but they didn’t really sound like normal people either”, and how that works to make listeners feel like it’s something they could do as well. The reason I spend that paragraph pulling from the Apple Music description is that it summarizes my overall feeling to an absolute T. This is an album that separates itself from the likes of contemporary pop rock explorations into experimentation found from The Rolling Stones or The Beatles. Where their combinations of radio friendliness and earnest creative thinking felt very laden in a technical expertise and talent that feels unachievable by the average joe schmo, The Velvet Underground go full bore into creative expressions, pushing the limits of rock n roll within a graspable, understandable format, which in turn pushed the limiting factors of technical mastery to the background. It doesn’t sound overly improvisational or random, outside perhaps the closing track ‘European Son’, but there is this looseness throughout that really effectively captures feeling over execution. This can be found in the solos in songs like ‘Run Run Run’ that have this kind of jagged, stiff tremolo picking throughout that doesn’t feel nearly as clean cut as something that ‘guitar gods’ of the time would have played, but plays the way a solo needs to play on these tracks—raw and energizing. In several moments, the band falls out of time with each other, and sometimes notes aren’t played exactly as they probably were intended, but it never really feels amateurish, always just feeling honest in effort and in thought. There is also a strong leverage on repetition, with long run times in the tracks, not because there is an absence of creative output, but because it’s utilized to immerse and almost underline what is being played, which in itself takes it’s own talent to achieve—playing the same rhythm over and over without sounding boring. None of this is meant to discount the musical abilities of The Velvet Underground, of course. But this album almost makes me feel like I’m in a garage with my friends, who are just making art for the sake of expression, doing what they can to make stuff that doesn’t just sound good, but is interesting. Between these dives into freaky experimentality like ‘Venus in Furs’ and ‘The Black Angel’s Death Song’ are more conventional tracks, whether pointed towards typical rock n roll (‘Waiting for my Man’) or this soft and sweet pop (‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’, ‘Sunday Morning’). But it never, ever feels uninspired. Whether it’s within the conventions of the time or not, Velvet Underground push such a monumental creative undercurrent, and it’s really just beautiful, plain and simple. Two of my favorite highlights from this album are ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’ and ‘Heroin’, which could not stand more opposed to one another, and perhaps no other duo of songs could perfectly portray what this album has to offer. One is a 7 minute long track that pushes this constant of tension and release while depressingly delivering an ode to self destruction through drug abuse, while the other is just over two minutes long—the shortest track on the album—about true love lifting oneself out of their own judgments and cloud of self-doubt set to breezy and jangly instrumentation. It isn’t rare to hear good music, but it can be exceptionally rare to hear music that you not only connect with, but feels genuinely inspiring, and makes you want to go and make your own music, or be creative in any other way. It can be easy to forget, but the people who make all our favorite music are just that, people—like you and me. This album feels like ‘people’ can make amazing stuff, not just ‘musicians’ who have some intangible, inherent talent that we can only daydream about.

Noisey and out of tune in parts but moorish and enjoyable. Makes amateur sound fun and accessible while also being wildly different for the time. I rate it

5/1/26. Classic album, first heard it years back and loved it ever since. Don't think other albums I've heard sound like it, with the tambourine rhythms and haunting lyrics, plus interesting instrumentation on each track.

Enjoyable but won't revisit

hermoso disco, femme fatale me destruye, nunca lo habia escuchado entero

Lou's voice is so gentle and raw Heroin is a great track for that.

mierdita

Cool art for cool music. Likes: Sunday Morning; I’m Waiting For The Man; Femme Fatale; Heroin; I’ll Be Your Mirror

⭐⭐⭐⭐+ Det här albumet är intressant. Å ena sidan låter det tidtypiskt men å andra sidan tidlöst, på ett indiesätt. Det är vågat men samtidigt lättilgängligt och varierat. Bäst är Sunday morning, I'm waiting for the man, Heroine och There she goes again. Finns några spår jag tycker lite mindre om som gör att det halkar ner från en 5a blir en stark 4a.

I knew a song or two already from this album. Didn't realize the Andy Warhol connection, I enjoyed the album. Can we take a moment to appreciate the tambourine! One star off for some musicals screeching that seemed unnecessary to me and ruined a couple of perfectly great tracks.

Big 3 star energy

Bello, ma non per ogni giorno (per me)

Guess you had to be there?

MY FAVS: - Sunday Morning - Femme Fatale - Venus in Furs

Track 1. Sunday Morning

Easy to see why this album had the trajectory it did - deeply ahead of its time and probably too raw/gritty for 60s audiences at the time. But of course as music started to bend that way, this is looked upon as a founder of Grunge, Indie, and Punk. Great album.

anzos jacket

Aye not bad. Enjoyed it overall but felt some of the songs went on a bit too long for me

This is a curious album although a classic and loved by me because of the memories it brings back. A mix of beautiful melodious songs and some drug-addled ramblings. But it's great

Disjointed and awkward. Feels like I wondered into a jam session attended entirely be people who were insanely high and thought that they had just played the best sound ever made, then instantly forgot what it was and spent the next five minutes trying to find it again. Awful.

By putting out their albums they might have implicitly given permission to others to create things that were further from the scope of what had been traditional Western music at the time, but let's be clear, while the song arrangements and instrumental performances are okay, with occasional moments of inspiration, the execution of the vocals (whether Reed or Nico) is somewhere between bad and horrendous and the choice of lyrical subject matter is worse. I'm not a fan of lyrics that were not written to be honest, and are instead just written to be eye-raising and salacious for no other purpose than to titillate. In those scenarios, I would prefer no lyrics at all. A bit too much form over function. The kind of album where you go, okay, this is where we came from, but thankfully everything got way, way better after this. I would imagine any covers of these songs would be instantly better than the originals by miles. I get it, you need albums that push that limits to understand when you have pushed past the limit and why boundaries were there in the first place.

Frequently all over the place, but awesome. One of a kind, most of the tracks still sounding amazing. Hard hitting themes, weird and lovely.

This album is a classic that I don't fully connect with. I like the first half much more than the second. In my opinion, it loses steam. I appreciate the complex simplicity, which is an ongoing motif throughout the record. The songs aren't obsessed with being perfect. They feel gritty and natural. The lyrics are also on point, with strong vocal delivery to match. The raw songwriting, whose themes range from urban decay to prostitution, adds to the album’s identity. The instrumentals are also worth mentioning. I also need to acknowledge how influential this record is, as it pushed boundaries and inspired many artists. I feel that if I spend more time with it, my opinion might improve, but on first listen, the second half was hard to get through. The songs that stood out are "Sunday Morning", "Femme Fatale" and "Venus in Furs".

Classic album cover, classic songs. Nico and Lou Reed do a great job of setting up a crazy experience. A lot of drugs make for some crazy songs. Heroin is an amazing trip of someone who knows what it is like to be on major drugs. 7.9/10 Top song Run Run Run

I did not love it, I did not hate it. It was ok and looks like it's really influential. I had to stop in the middle of the last song, my head was hurting already. Besides that, solid.

This is absolutely not my cup of tea, skipped nearly every song 😮‍💨

This sounds like if you asked a bunch of junkie artists to make a pop album, and they were also really really good at making a pop album.

everyone who rated this 1 star either hates fun and is miserable or just has shit music taste

7/10

It has its moments but man this is suuuuper overrated. Definitely cool for it’s time and was a rare success as an avant garde album but it struggles holding up today. As the album progressed it got more grating and miserable lowering it from 2 to a 1. Hardly even singing.

1001 albums to hear before you hear the black angels death song 81# Context matters. A lot. And this album put in context, it's one of the most creative, even though Pet sounds we're already there, or Revolver. It's part of that revolution, for a weirder sound. For the ears of today, I don't think this stands with the aforementioned albums. (Not comparable at all) Midway through I started to get it and be in the vibe. This is so dreamy and trip inducing, the repetitions and the uncanny guitar solos..? Awesome

ich kannte viele songs schon; Nico ist mir aber noch nie so aufgefallen und ich finde sie spannend. Venus in Furs finde ich am besten.

Amazing. Nothing like it before or since.

not as good as i expected as well

Just don’t understand the infatuation with this band. They are fine, but it is all pretty average.

Really thought this would blow me away but alas

It's okay

This was quite boring

interesting. glad i listened to this. i liked this, this was different from my normal tastes. i think i'll listen to this regularly, at least sunday morning.

Shiny Shiny Shiny Boots of Leather

Bagus bat jir lah kane bener

A good experience - a band I always knew about, but never really listened to. +1 Fan.

Chill typ

I get why it's important but not as listenable as some of Lou's other work, to taking it from 4 to 3.

Felt like I was on the verge of a panic attack in parts icl

I don't really get it. The last song european son is interesting. I'm sure that in the context of when the album came out this was more edgy than it is today. Sounds like regular 60's rock to me, but it probably influenced a lot.

I want to like these guys, and try to like them, but just not so much. Too odd, subdued and moody for me.

Não é do meu gosto.

276/1089 i know of this one for the cover art and literally nothing else i think so let’s see what’s up sunday morning does sound a bit familiar the first 3 tracks were not really it for me but Venus in Furs hooked me, so i’m happy to have found at least 1 song that i find interesting and good-sounding. The strings in it give the song a lot more depth and intrigue to me okay, the album is solid if you discount the first 3 songs imo faves: Venus in Furs, Heroin 52/100

Great

En 1967, le monde était censé porter des fleurs dans les cheveux et chanter l’amour universel sous acide à San Francisco. C’était le règne du psychédélisme coloré, des mélodies sucrées et de l'optimisme béat des hippies qui pensaient que le monde allait changer avec des câlins. Et puis, venus des bas-fonds crasseux de New York, débarquent ces quatre types et cette égérie glaciale. Des types en noir, avec des lunettes de soleil à l’intérieur, qui n’en ont strictement rien à foutre de votre « Summer of Love ». Le Velvet Underground, c’est l’anti-Beatles, c’est le revers de la médaille. C’est ce qui se passe quand les lumières s’éteignent et que la paranoïa commence à gratter aux portes du cerveau. Ce n’est pas un disque, c’est un constat de décès de l’innocence et putain, qu'est-ce que c'est bon. Dès les premières notes de « Sunday Morning », on se fait avoir. On croit à une petite ritournelle innocente, un truc de boîte à musique pour se réveiller doucement. Mais rapidement on sent que c'est le calme avant une tempête de merde. Et de la merde, il y en a car cet album c’est une plongée en apnée dans tout ce que la société polie préférait ignorer à l’époque. L’héroïne, le sadomasochisme, l’aliénation urbaine, les junkies qui attendent leur fix au coin de la rue. Lou Reed n'écrit pas des chansons, il écrit des dépêches de guerre depuis le trottoir. Il ne juge pas, il ne moralise pas, il observe la déchéance avec un détachement qui glace le sang. Et puis, il y a le son. Ce mur de bruit, cette friture constante qui vient vous irriter les tympans. On doit ça à John Cale et à son alto électrique qui grince comme une porte de cimetière qu'on n'a pas huilée depuis un siècle. Le mec a ramené l'avant-garde et le minimalisme de La Monte Young dans le rock n' roll. C’est une agression sonore permanente, un drone qui vous hypnotise jusqu’à ce que vous oubliiez votre propre nom. C’est sale, c’est mal produit, c’est enregistré avec les pieds dans un studio qui tombait en ruine et c’est précisément pour ça que c’est parfait. La perfection technique, c’est pour les groupes de bal ou les virtuoses du dimanche qui s’ennuient. Ici, on est dans l’urgence, dans la crasse, dans le vrai. C'est le disque qui a appris à tout le monde que l'on pouvait faire du génie avec trois accords et une attitude de merde. Parlons de Nico. Elle n'est pas là parce qu'elle sait chanter au sens traditionnel du terme. Elle est là parce qu'elle est une présence. Une déesse teutonne, glaciale, monolithique. Quand elle chante « Femme Fatale » ou « All Tomorrow's Parties », on dirait une statue de marbre qui s'adresse à nous depuis le fond d'un puits. Elle apporte une mélancolie européenne, une distance aristocratique au milieu du chaos new-yorkais. Et que dire de Maureen Tucker ? La batteuse la plus sous-estimée de l'histoire du rock. Elle joue debout, elle ne touche pas aux cymbales. Elle martèle son kit avec un minimalisme tribal qui donne à l’album son rythme cardiaque. C’est lancinant, c’est primitif. C’est la base de tout ce qui deviendra plus tard le post-punk et le rock industriel. Sans elle, le Velvet n'aurait été qu'un groupe de folk un peu bizarre. Avec elle, c'est une machine de guerre. Cet album, c’est le manuel de survie de tous les inadaptés de la Terre. C’est le disque que les critiques ont piétiné à sa sortie avant de se rendre compte, vingt ans plus tard, qu’ils étaient passés à côté de l’essentiel. Vendre 30 000 exemplaires à l'époque, c'était un échec total. Mais comme on le dit souvent, chacun de ces 30 000 acheteurs a monté son propre groupe. C’est le gène originel, c’est l’ADN de tout ce que j'écoute. C'est la racine de tout ce qui gratte, de tout ce qui dérange, de tout ce qui est sincère. Quand j'écoute « Heroin », je ne peux pas m'empêcher d'être fasciné par cette montée en puissance insupportable. Le tempo qui accélère comme un cœur sur le point d'exploser. Le feedback qui devient un cri strident. Et puis, le calme. Le vide. C’est une expérience physique autant que musicale. On a souvent reproché à Andy Warhol d'avoir utilisé le groupe comme un simple accessoire pour sa Factory. Mais sans lui, ce disque n'aurait probablement jamais vu le jour sous cette forme. Il leur a donné la liberté totale d'être les monstres qu'ils voulaient être. Il a mis son nom dessus, il a dessiné cette banane provocante, et il a laissé Lou Reed explorer les tréfonds de l'âme humaine. C’est la rencontre miraculeuse entre l’art contemporain et la rue. Alors, « No comment ». Car qu’est-ce que vous voulez rajouter à ça ? Le Velvet Undergroud c’est un bloc, une pièce d’histoire qui refuse de vieillir. Même aujourd'hui, au milieu des productions lisses et autotunées qui inondent nos oreilles, il sonne toujours comme une menace. Il sonne comme le futur, alors qu'il a soixante ans. C’est le disque qui a tué les années 60 avant même qu'elles ne soient terminées. C’est l'album qui a inventé la notion de « cool ». Pas le cool de façade, pas le cool marketing. Le vrai cool : celui qui consiste à être soi-même, même si soi-même est un bordel noir, bruyant et désespéré. C’est la célébration de l’obscurité comme forme d’art suprême. C’est la preuve que la beauté peut surgir du chaos le plus total. Je ne vais pas vous faire l’affront de vous expliquer chaque piste. Si vous avez des oreilles, vous savez de quoi je parle. Si vous ne l’avez jamais écouté, je me demande bien ce que vous foutez là. Vous passez à côté de la fondation de votre propre discothèque. C’est comme essayer de comprendre la littérature sans avoir lu l’alphabet. Le Velvet Underground & Nico, c’est le moment où le rock a arrêté d’être un divertissement pour ados boutonneux et est devenu un art majeur. Un art sombre, dangereux, imprévisible. Lou Reed est le prophète, John Cale est le bourreau, et nous sommes les victimes consentantes. Evidemment et indiscutablement c'est un 5/5. C’est la note maximale parce qu’il n’existe pas d’échelle pour mesurer l’infini. C’est l’album que j'emporterais dans ma tombe, juste pour être sûr d'avoir quelque chose de décent à écouter de l'autre côté. Voilà, l'article est fini, la banane est pelée, le bruit s'est tu mais l'écho, lui, ne s'arrêtera jamais de résonner dans nos crânes de révoltés. Merci Andy, merci Lou, merci John, merci Moe, merci Sterling. Et merci Nico, là où tu es, pour nous avoir glacé le sang avec tant de grâce. C'est le disque qui m'a tout appris. C'est le disque qui m'a sauvé et perdu en même temps. Et c'est pour ça que je n'ai rien de plus à ajouter. Tout est dit dans le premier accord de « I'm Waiting For The Man », le reste, c’est du remplissage. Le Velvet, c'est la vie en plus moche, donc en plus beau.

Heroin - banger

Good beats, but just okay.

i guess this is what taking heroin feels like. fucking amazing for a debut album. Favorite songs: Venus In Furs, Heroin, Black Angel's Death Song, European Son

My parents had already introduced me to this album but if never listened to it fully. Sunday morning reminds me of my childhood. I rlly like I'm waiting for the man, I don't know I see like a wes anderson scene sequence with this song. Something to do with kitchens. Femme fatale reminds me of myself. Id bake while listening to this. It's kind of melancholy. Venus in Furs- id put that in a witch movie. Run run run reminds me of the scene with peewee and the bikers in his big adventure. I don't know why it does. There she goes is definitely one of my favorites. I kinda zoned out listening to the rest as I was doing my art.

sent la clope et l'abri de bus un soir de pluie. S/o a femme fatale qui est le meilleur son de l'album

Kind of like the doors and the birds…

3.5 Bits and pieces mas na generalidade apreciei. As guitarras para mim, salvaram a experiência.