1001 Albums Summary

The best songs on this album are the first and last track. "El Nicoya" is an exciting percussion feature, and "Singing Winds, Crying Beasts" is a beautifully transcendent piece of musical orchestration. Between the sweeping chimes & effects, and the weeping guitar, it's absolutely beautiful. Too bad the rest of the album is as dull as classic rock gets. "Samba Pa Ti" is the only song that actually stands up of the tracks in between the beginning and end of the album. It's not groundbreaking, but its a nice guitar feature. The three covers, "Black Magic Woman", "Gypsy Queen", and "Oye Como Va" are so overplayed at this point that it's impossible for me to get into them in the album context. They're fine, but passable, I was never into these songs to begin with. Both of Gregg Rolie's songs are insufferable with some of the worst lyrics, overly aggressive singing, and basic jam-band riffs I've ever heard. These songs were very irritating and I'd be very pleased if I never had to hear such subpar songwriting again. That only leaves "Se a Cabo" and "Incident at Neshabur", which were boring. I didn't think this album was particularly great, and I probably won't revisit it.

The first song, "Candy Says", is the best track on this album, it's absolutely beautiful with such a mesmerizing chord progression, and great vocals from Doug Yule. "After Hours" is probably my second favorite, a very twee song with a great vocal from Maureen Tucker. Normally this kind of sweetness might put me off, but it's just done so well that I have to commend it. The songs in between the first and last tracks on this album range from bad to just okay. "Pale Blue Eyes" is fine, if not a little repetitive, and "Jesus" would have made a great Simon & Garfunkel song. I also like the concept of "Murder Mystery", being that if you listen to one channel or the other you get two different songs/stories, essentially. That said, it doesn't excuse its 9 minute monotonous runtime. The rest of the songs are bland, boring, or just bad. And that's without stating that I can't stand Lou Reed's singing voice, which ruins even the best of the tracks on here. Hence why my two favorites are the songs he doesn't take lead vocals on. The Velvet Underground (1969) is okay, but nothing special overall.