1001 Albums Summary

You would think The Velvet Underground were the second coming of Jesus or something with the way people hype them up, but the reality is they actually had little commercial success during their time. Honestly, I can see why. This is just your average underground rock album from the '60s. There is some interesting instrumentation and are an interesting enough mixture of rock and avant garde things, but it's very middle of the road to me. I wonder if the "myth" of the band is greater than the sum of its parts. The standout song is "Candy Says" which was actually surprisingly progressive and sensitive for its time. Excellent song. Other than that, meh.

Not a fan. This is the kind of soft rock that plays in the background of an accountant’s office.

Very Yoko Ono-ish background vocals on the opening track, which at first were off-putting to me. But I decided to give it a shot and go deeper with an open mind. But no, I ended up absolutely, viscerally hating it. This is honestly one of the worst albums I have ever heard in my life. It can be characterized in one word: noise. Self-indulgent noise. I just don't get it at all. This album is the equivalent of an Ohio transplant who moved to Brooklyn to "discover" Crown Heights and now refuses to shop anywhere but Buffalo Exchange for his clothes. If you know, you know. Oddly mixed as everything is LOUD. All the sounds are competing with one another. It's an inharmonious, cacophonous disaster that should not be listened to with headphones lest you want to blow your hearing. The singer sounds like he's doing a half-rate Tiny Tim impression, the background singers shout over him, there are random claps interspersed everywhere, the music often changes key and time signature, and almost every song starts out slower and then has a "drop the beat" moment. It's just a mess. I bet when they were making this album, they were like "Fuck yeah! This sounds cool!" and nobody wanted to say otherwise. Because it truly doesn't. Offbeat hipster nonsense that is way too far up its own ass. Awful album. Right in the trash.