White Light / White Heat

did not like. too jam bandy

I've never listened to this album before, I'm sure. But if this had been the first thing I'd ever heard from VU, I'd never have listened to anything else from them. This is absolute trash.

i don’t think i’m the target audience for this album.

This album was just outrageously dull. Looking back, I actually scored The Velvet Underground’s self-titled album highly, but holy guacamole this album is awful. It’s shoddily played instruments very bizarrely mixed vocals, and occasional loud feedback sounds. I’m genuinely amazed that this is considered a good album. I’d rather listen to 40 minutes of dog farts.

I really tried liking I swear to cow but it was dull and boring as fuck

1. light - 0 2. gift - 0 3. lady - 1 4. nouu - 1 5. name - 1 6. zizter - 1 7. name 2 - 1 8. love - 1 9. heart - 1 10. ztephanie - 1 11. rain - 1 12. rain 2 - 1 13. light - 1 14. booker - 1.5 15. anymore - 1 16. love - 1.5 17. man - 1 18. run run - 1 19. ray - 1 20. gift - 1

inaudível mixagem horrível até pra 1968 sua influência se compara a como se uma das primeiras pinturas na história usando a cor azul fosse um pênis mal feito não é pq é influente e histórico q eu tenho q gostar dum quadro dum pênis

Achava que eles so tinham feito bittersweet symphony. Honestamente o album não é um dos mais impactantes. A segunda musica é basciamente um monologo hippie com uma linha de baixo fazendo dum dum dum dum dum, detalhe que essa musica é basicamente uma romantizacao de suicidio de corno. francamente bem boiola. Meio meh.

What the actual fuck have I just listened to. Sounds like a poor quality recording made by a bunch of people who were too high/drunk to form coherent thoughts. Way too screechy but possibly could be made good if it was re-recorded well.

You don't get to read a urban legend copypasta at me without my consent and then end the album on a 17 minute meander meme fest.

Feedback: The Album. I hated this more than I expected. I can't believe a full 8 minutes of the 40 are devoted to a spoken word story. Nothing else in here really contains any music I want to hear again. The vocals and lyrics are unpleasant too.

Obnoxious garbage. Apart from The Who, I absolutely DESPISE The Velvet Underground.

Spotify wil me naaien met een 126 minuten versie, maar dat kan ik me met mijn achterstand niet veroorloven. Maar zo is het album oorspronkelijk natuurlijk ook niet bedoeld. Vanaf track 2 (een langdradig kutverhaal) ben ik er aan uit dat dit album nooit op een dergelijke lijst had gestaan als het nu zou worden uitgebracht. Ongepolijste, kunstzinnige rommel die vooral legendarisch is omdat een lading boomers dat ooit heeft besloten. Af en toe krijg je bij dit soort bands het idee dat ze vooral aan het kloten waren met hun taperecorder en dat de liedjes zelf bijzaak waren. Kunnen zingen was in ieder geval geen vereiste. Het zal allemaal wel z'n plek hebben in het muzieklandschap, maar ik ervaar dit album toch weer vooral als een enorm vermoeiende schreeuw om aandacht. Dit is niet aan mij besteed. Die laatste track waar iedereen even een kwartier mag uitrazen begint wel aardig. Helaas wordt het al weer gauw een schelle kakofonie. Ik vind dit super kut. 1 ster. Kutherrie.

White Light / White Heat is what happens when a band decides they’re above making actual music. Lou Reed probably thought he was a genius when he recorded this, but it sounds like he tossed his instruments into a cement mixer and called it art. Every “song” is a cacophony of screeching, distorted guitars over lyrics that make zero sense. If you’ve ever wanted to know what it’s like to have your eardrums sanded down by pretentious noise, you’ve found it. Art? More like White Noise / Headache.

so fire that it's burning down the house!!!!!

альбом - перформанс, альбом - провокация

I can easily imagine in 1968 that there was so little going on that someone could hear this and it could be so experimental and different and interesting that they’d be like wow this is so experimental and different and find it very entertaining, but i am listening to it in 2024 and it isnt interesting it’s annoying

This was so awful. They got rid of Andy Warhol and Nico for this album, and apparently they needed them. This was just poorly produced noise. I really have no idea why this is on the list.

bruh this was dogshit. Why do people say something was good because it was experimental. It has to be good first, then you get extra points for doing something unique. Otherwise experiment failed. You all can boo now idc. The Waldo song is an interesting story but since when is reading a short story a song. I really don’t care for discordant noise and then people cheer cuz “wow no one else is doing this”. yea there’s a reason. Smh 1.5 if I could

1/5

Songs are too much like talking with music in background, difficult to understand what song is. Out of tune, no melody at all.

couldn’t finish. fell asleep

This was almost painful to listen to.

Didnt finish it. An hour too long and it is mostly experimental noise.

Surely the worst album that regularly pops up on "best of" lists. Monotonous, noisy, lyrically offensive. VU are like a comedian who thinks it's cool to be crass. Nah... just boring.

Ummm 30 tracks, over 3 hours? Dear god, why. OK, I'll give it a try... check back in on me in an hour or so. I'm back. This is crap. Sorry, I know I know I know Lou Reed, influencer, innovator, he took a walk on the wild side... but come on, this is crap.

White hot trash! First song was fine, then for some reason they started overusing feedback in their songs and it kept making me cringe like nails on a chalkboard. Then in another song, after a line is sung, some dude half ass repeats the word like a crappy hype man at a hip hop concert. I don’t understand how this even made the list.

9/5/24. I'm a big fan of Velvet Underground but I didn't like this one, just thought it was rambling and noisy. Compared to Nico and the Self Titled, this one is far behind in my opinion.

Loaded is a far better album than this hot mess.

Did not like one little bit

💤💤

if you want to torture your ears for 40 minutes give this a listen. Might be the worst album on this list so far.

What the hell is The Gift!? Motherfucker Lou, Sister Ray is so poorly mixed. god this stuff is a pain to listen to. Wow what a real pile of shit.

I can only speculate why this might be a "good" album. It can't be the music.

1/10…Postpunk(apokalypse)

Actively bad

Sure man whatever you say, this ain't for me

I get it, the noise and chaos is the point, but it’s just not good.

“Where Waldo” meets Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Sounds like someone pressed record in the rehearsal room full of drunks. I really dont get the greatness of this.

Jeez, White Light/White Heat is definitely not for me, it actively annoyed me and/or made my head hurt at times, and the rest of it was pretty inaccessible with (deliberately) sparse production and a lack of coherent structure. The Gift as a spoken word song was crap, Here She Comes Now was a load of noise, and Sister Ray is stupidly overblown and genuinely terrible in places. I am not remotely the target audience for this sort of stuff, experimental in every way, but it can get in the bin as far as I'm concerned, a 1 from me, and I'll fight you about it too. Lou Reed was a cunt and I'll fight him as well, dead or alive.

#272. This started out bad, and only got worse. 1/5: terrible, take a lap.

Shit!

pretentious drivel

Wooooaaaaaah, bloooooaaaaa, and spuuuuul is random sounds that for some reason make up this album and it is wildly confusing overall. No me gusta Velvet Underground.

Just because your music is dIfFeReNt and aRtSy doesn’t make it good. After the first song I was like oh okay maybe this won’t be that bad. This song was okay even it Reed was just repeating the same things over and over (same thing for tracks 4 and 5). Then I got to track 2. Who puts a spoken word track on an album. It was bad. The story was stupid and really depressing and had no purpose being on the album other than making me hate it. Then track 3 happened which I didn’t like either. Track 4 was okay just like track 1. Track 5 was good up until the 2 and half minute attempted guitar solo that’s was BUNS. Then track 6. I mean what the heck guys. Why. First off it’s almost 18 minutes long. Secondly it’s AGAIN the same lyrics just repeated over and over and over. Then there’s another terrible attempt at a guitar solo that hurt me inside. This album was just pathetic. Did not deserve to be on this list and don’t want to ever hear it again.

Not a fan of this “experimental rock”. It’s just noise w instruments. And I’m sorry but at nearly 20 minute “song” with just nonsense & mumbling words??? No.

There’s a reason why even the band dislikes this album, this is such a step down from their other albums and I can’t believe the same band made this album

My theory still stands: experimental or new for the time doesn't mean it'll be good in 50+ years. If you like the sound of the band playing around and making stuff up before the ACTUAL song is recorded, you might like it. Maybe. I like noise with purpose, and if they meant for purpose in it, I couldn't find it.

lmao what the fuck is this shit? 8 minute long spoken word "song"? whats up with the audio quality? having no direction and no equipment to record your shit with doesnt make this groundbreaking, lmao i cant, this is fucking terrible what?? NNN what the fuck hahaha

what a bunch of bullshit.

Why are these weirdos so popular. I needed a palette cleanse after 17 minutes of noise. Best bit of trivia is the engineer left the room during recording of sister ray since he couldn't stand the noise.

Okay, okay, okay! I confess to everything just please make it stop! 1 Star or F- worst album I have ever heard, and that is saying something after Slim Shady.

"White Light / White Heat" is the second studio album by the Velvet Underground. What sounds like the a great grandparent to garage or grunge, this album charted worse than its predecessor. Listening to some of these tracks ("The Gift") felt more like listening to an audiobook than music. It is inconceivable and extremely burdensome that this album is 126 minutes long when the original track listing was only 22 minutes.

Not good. Fuzzy, dumb lyrics, and just generally bad music. It's got a vibe, and if you're in a trance then maybe this is for you, but I didn't really like any of it. If I had to pick a favorite, probably Here She Comes Now, party because its actually a somg, and partly because it's only 2 mins long.

not a fan, just felt like noise to me

etwas nervig bis schlecht

Has continued to confirm to me that anyone who claims a Velvet Underground album as their favourite is the worst kind of tedious "arty" bore. Unlistenable for the most part, this noisy rock sound has been done 1,000 times better since 1*

Unlistenable garbage.

Mest megnis frekar boring.

Not their best effort

Noise. Someone please tell me what I'm missing.

Mostly horrible noise. Managed to listen to most of it except the last part of the last track, my ears couln't take it any more after about six minutes.

I... don't like it. The tracks mostly feel samey, some of them are excruciatingly long or repeated. Everything has an unappealing layer of electric fuzz over it. To top that off, there seem to be random screeches and loud shouts that are at totally different volume levels.

Much as I want to rate this highly, this album is just too much of a mess to be listenable. VU have done so much better than this.

dont care for it

Too much experimentation

I'm getting pretty tired of this era/sound. Whoo buddy. I enjoyed the weird spoken word, but I wouldn't listen to it again. I heard her call my name was so bad I skipped it halfway through

White light white heat So distorted and compressed. Mix is terrible. Is the playing intentionally so bad? Songwriting sounds like pretentious psychedelic rock stuff or like they didn’t really even try. I just really don’t understand how something like this gets made and released. Some of the noisy feedback stuff is cool but not really in a cool context. This is so bad. The band is criminally overrated. I just don’t get it. 1

This sounds like shit! a masterclass on how to make a terrible sounding record. The recording section on wiki is kind of a funny read. Is this “the room” of albums??

This sounds absolutely horrible. In a bad way.

Noooooooope! Nope nope nope. If he says, "sucking on my ding dong" again, I'm flip a fucking table ⭐️

No

I did not like this album

Didn't like this at all

not really my jam, no saves on this one for me.

Proof that not all artists of the 60s were great - or in this case even talented.

This sounds like kids recording their first month with new electric instruments trying to make the worst noise possible.

Noooooooo.

I know this group was considered influential for the 60’s counter culture movement, but this is just noise to me.

Yo wtf is up with the gift? I tuned out all that nonsense. Off the bat, this is garbo, maybe this is on the list because of the band name, not because of how the album is. Or maybe this is here because it "pioneers a genre" -- just because of that. it doesn't make this a good album.

Not sure what it was but this was a horrible listen. I think it was just the dissidence in the lead guitar throughout the entire album. It physically hurt my head. Not sure if I liked any song because I couldn't focus past the guitar. :(

Obnoxious sound, poorly produced

Bråkete og jævlig

Adjacent to so much I liked but there are only so many times I can hear "sucking on my ding dong." I hate this album.

Not pleasant to listen to.

its like if remain in light was bad

An absolute atrocity. I don't care what edgy vibe these noisy fuckwits are trying to put across, it's no good if there ain't a tune popping out every now and then. Just stupid dissonant noise. Gross.

What on earth was that? Lo-fi recording can be an artistic choice, but this sounds like it was recorded on a potato. Rating: 1.5/5 Playlist track: White Light/White Heat Date listened: 01/12/23

Oh my.

The link here directed me to the deluxe edition of this album, and I wonder if that was really supposed to happen as I see now there is a also a regular one on Spotify. Listening to the original album version might've changed things as it seems much more condensed, but I can't be arsed to go through it again. This album has cemented my dislike of The Velvet Underground. Their first album is ok, but not really my cup of tea. This is much worse in all regards. The guitar distortion they have on all tracks is done in an ear-deafening way and not very nice. So many high pitched shrieks that are really unpleasant. It's not just the actual sound though, the songs themselves are super boring as well, and a few of them just drag on forever, like 'The Gift' and 'Sister Ray'. I think this probably has to be listened to with the fact in mind that it was released in '68, but it's hard to do that when it sounds how it does. There are many older albums that survived the turn of time, but not this one.

Man, how I didn't like this. Pretentious, noisy (in a bad way) and just boring. "The Gift" might have been fun if the story was actually any good. "Stephanie Says" is like a worse "Sunday Morning".

I did not enjoy these noisy jams. Maybe if I had the context of 55 years ago I would have been more impressed by the experimentation given the context of the time.

Pretentiöser Art Rock.

Just as meh as all the Velvet Underground albums.

Truly dreadful

Sorry, know they were supposed to be great but I found it naff.

A truly terrible album where I stopped listening after a few tracks, "the gift" was both bad and disturbing. Why are they famous?

Weer een gevalletje 'operatie geslaagd, patient overleden'... We hebben al eens eerder zo'n matige experimentele plaat van Lou Reed gehad, en deze is zo mogelijk nog erger. Ik zat nog heel hard aan redenen te denken om deze nog tenminste een 2 te geven, maar ik kon er geen enkele bedenken.

Wat gemompel dat losstaat van de muziek. Als er toch zangpoging wordt gedaan, is het een soort slechte Dylan. Af en toe nog het piepende geluid van een microfoon die te dicht bij de box staat om het af te toppen. Een 1, omdat lager niet kan.

I have tried to find something here which could justify two stars, but I had to give up.

bad length. I really don't like 8 minute monologues about shit I don't care about. I also dislike boring 17 minute songs about ding dongs. dogshit tier. I also don't really like the sound of the real songs either.

The sounds my turds make when they plop into the toilet bowl are more musical that this dogshit.

Nö. 1 Stern

I didn't enjoy this album at all unfortunately.

I mean, I don't mind talking and stuff, but what the heck are those excessive noises... NO

What an absolute ugly mess. This is not good music, I do not enjoy listening to this.

Mostly super early punk-ish tracks. I kinda liked Stephanie Says as it felt more like inspiration for Weezer or early Fountains of Wayne, so it was more my style. Overall nothing I would listen to again but fine for what it was representative of at the time it was released

Had to skip the 3rd track. And the 5th track. The orig release only had 6 tracks, so I only reviewed those. Velvet Underground has _way_better songs than anything on this album. There's actually some good stuff on the Deluxe release. 1/5

I'm glad that this 1001 albums thing gets me to listen to stuff I never would on my own. Also, I didn't like this one. I was waiting for it to end.

I can't seem to get into it. Have heard other albums by them before, but it doesn't click. Maybe I'd need to give it another chance (or two) someday. Liked the spoken words of The Gift though.

Trop de distorsion et de n'importe quoi.

Get the fuck out

This was pretty terrible. Some songs have great potential but the singer's tone/voice and strident noises just don't work. The rest is just over-saturated noise. Gave me a headache.

Man, could not get into this. 1/5

I'm glad there is a place for experimental music to be made, but this was torturous and it made me angry. I began by laughing at the absurdity of it all, but then that quickly turned into screaming shut the fuck up over some freaky 8 minute story time about mailing yourself to a woman and then getting murdered. You can like this and say it's ahead of it's time, which it probably is, but listening to a 17 minute noise rock song about getting your ding dong sucked just isn't for me.

I was only familiar with Velvet Underground & Nico 🍌 album, hadn't listened to this one before. I went with the non-deluxe edition, 6 tracks, conciser-ish. https://open.spotify.com/album/0HHmJpwOXXRJu9HI9iQiEO Funny with the opening track, immediately knew where LCD Soundsystem's Drunk Girls got its influence. For the rest of the album, I didn't care for it much, it's all over the place. Some call it art, most call it noise.

Ugh. It was annoying. The 17 minute song was definitely not needed and it just became noise. It was not good. I am rounding down.

I'm not a fan of the VU and this album was even more unlistenable due to the terribly distorted recording.

Sounded very dissonant to me. Did not enjoy it at all.

An insult to my ears

Fyfan, En gång var det nyskapande och edgy nu mest jobbigt.

så trist och dåligt

Ohh... kay. Wasn't really expecting... whatever that was. It certainly has its moments of brilliance ("White Light/White Heat", "Sister Ray", and "Beginning to See the Light" are so good). But it also has its moments of utter batshit WTFery. Unfortunately, the latter far outnumber the former. I mean, "The Gift"? "Lady Godiva's Operation"? What the actual hell? I really REALLY wanted to give this at least a 2-star rating. I kept desperately looking for reasons not to fail the album... but I realized I was trying too hard to make excuses for what is, truly, a shit record.

p127. 1968. 1 star. Unattractive 60s art-house rock. You can see its influence on punk rock, but that doesn't mean it's good. Outstays its welcome on most of the tracks, especially the 17 minute wankage that is Sister Ray. You can see why it didn't sell. Would not listen to it again.

09/27/2022 Bruh…they were off the shits when they recorded this album. Considering I’ve heard like 3-4 of their other albums, this one is easily the worst. A lot of these songs were a pain to get through, or I had to skip them altogether. It’s like they were all fucked up off whatever they were taking and were like “oh SHIT, we have to pull up to the studio today. Alright y’all, let’s just pull something out our arses and make this deadline” Boo

I understand the importance of The Velvet Underground in music, but not something I want to listen to. It seems loud and over compressed for the sake of it. Had to push myself to finish it. Maybe it's just too artsy and I'm too basic.

Songs weren’t very catchy and repetitive - psychedelic rock just isn’t for me I think

Listen, I don't mind a jam session. I'm not *that* huge into the Grateful Dead, but I can appreciate them. There's elements of noise rock and psychedelic here, but man, they find one chord progression and beat it into a grave, don't they? Yes, yes, the lyrical topics were extremely progressive for their time, but there's got to be more than that, especially when the vocals are buried beneath everything else. I thought this album would escape my one-star graveyard, but then "Sister Ray" started to drag on and I realized, with growing horror, that it was going to go on forever. This is just my purgatory, I guess. "Suckin' on his ding-dong," eh, Lou?

Probably good in the 60’s trippin on acid. Not for me in 2022

Just noise

Can confidently say I never need listen to this again

ugg, I need more melody

Why? God to live in a time where you can make absolute shit and get recognized.

Ick. No thank you. Sounds like uninspired trash.

Just awful. The Gift just sounds like he’s reading a book and no one can convince me that the 17-minute closer is actually good.

The height of pretentiousness

I just don’t like Lou Reed.

What a stupid album. I'll give it a 1 so I can remember it. Because it did actually make me feel something and think. I like it. But it's really terrible. "Your business' sucking on my ding-dong" And then they put "Stephanie Says" on the Deluxe Edition, and it sounds like a fucking masterpiece beside all the other horrible shit they made you listen to.

Not good

“Utterly pretentious, unbelievably monotonous.”

I didn't like this one, I think it was too avant garde for me.

Incredibly boring

Wat een akelige toestand. Dit verdienen we niet.

Не понял

Terrible solos… is it a joke? Bad sounds Stephani says was good doe

didnt like not good

Not really for me. Rather bland.

Vittu mitä paskaa. En jaksanut kuunnella koko levyä ja biisit meni hyppien läpi. Ei käynyt mielessäkään testata levyä 2....

Yks kuunneltava biisi ja senkin Nirvana coveroinu paremmin. Skippailin enkä kuunnellu niitä extroja

1968. Why am I not surprised. lol. Ok wow, this fucking SUX. Even worse than expected. What in the hell?? 1/5.

Never have been impressed with TVU. Kind of boring and pretentious. Don't get it.

Utter garbage

Muito paradao e devagar pra mim

Absolutely ridiculously over hyped garbage. I’m actually angry for having had to listen to this and try find something positive. There’s a lot of albums here that I feel like I have to like because everybody does and everybody does because everybody does. Like a contagion of stupid music. Can some of these older artists just be considered old and irrelevant and not hold the “classic” tag forever?

Mest oväsen

1/5 - I get why it's on the list (it's a bridge between two worlds of music), but this album objectively is terrible.

I wanted to like this so bad, but every song just had something that annoyed me, from the random different voice singing 1 word to the guitar being made to scream, did not love

This was a hard listen. It seems to me to be an early example of that difficult second album. Or maybe no Nico was the problem. Or maybe you just had to be there, and I wasn’t obviously.

The aural equivalent of 8mm black and white endless sweaty torture nightmare fuel. The horror... 1/10

Not interesting.

Really not much of a fan of this. Sounds kind of Beatles - ish. Bit experimental, bit rock n roll. Didn't warm to it though, bit too out there. I assume/hope these guys have better albums. 1/5

Hurt my ears.

This album is very weird and I kind of hate it. I can get behind a messy album, but this is all over the place with some truly annoying stuff like someone basically swallowing the mic and blowing out the levels. It doesn't sound artsy, it sounds stupid.

No se lo pondria ni a mi peor enemigo

Awful. This album was developed by the Imperial Japanese Army as a form of torture for POWs so severe they begged to be cut open and experimented on. If aliens invaded earth it would be because this album was beamed out to space. If aliens invaded earth, humanity would win by playing this album so the aliens decided suicide was preferable. Worst album to ever disgrace the universe.

Now I know what heroin is like. I didn’t like it.

Nope

Nah. Not for me

Ok, la de The Gift está chistosita pero el resto me recordó una banda de garage en un ensayo en el que no terminan de ponerse de acuerdo. Con todo y que le di dos pasadas y que entiendo un poco que son retos a la estética y salidas a lo convencional y eso puede funcionar en algunos puntos, los 17 minutos the Sister Ray son algo que no logro apreciar.

Meh

I was not a fan of this album.

Ik vind dit geen chille muziek. Beetje te druk en niet mijn smaak. Nummers I Heard Her Call My Name en Sister Ray doen pijn aan mijn oren.

Just bad

Garbage

Made me grinds my teeths together. Definetly did not like it.