Review:

on 2011-03-26 CharlesMartel Said:

Perhaps I had been unfair to the Velvet Underground. This was a thought which had grown in me for some time. After all, the first album I had bought of theirs was nothing more than a compilation of outtakes and b-sides. That is hardly a good place to start with any band, listening to the stuff they themselves did not regard very highly. Perhaps I should give the Velvet Underground another go. So when I stumbled across this CD is the bargain bin of a well-known independent record store on Berwick Street, I thought, now is the chance to put right the impression I had first gained regarding the Velvet Underground

And as it turned out, this is better than the first compilation I bought several years before. This has the more well-known, familiar stuff by the Velvet Underground and represents a better summary of their work. The previous album was, in retrospect, something which only completeists would buy and therefore not the right thing for a VU sceptic like me. This is the Velvet Underground as so often remembered. Trouble is, after listening to it I was not that sure I wanted to remember some of this. You see, even having given the Velvet Underground another chance, I decided that I still did not care for them at all.

The trouble with a number of these tracks is that, in my eyes, they have been done better by other people. Lou Reed himself did a far superior version of "Heroin" on "Live In Italy". "White Light/White Heat" has been covered so many times it is difficult to tell which one is better, though I am told that Joy Division sometimes did great live performances of it. "Sweet Jane" and "Rock and Roll" have all featured in the repertoires of other artists, and I generally prefer those versions. I suppose that is often seen as the mark of a great band, that their songs are covered by so many if you believe in the old adage that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but I am merely trying to convince myself, quite without sincerity, as I type those words out.

One of the problems which always bedevils the Velvet Underground is the production. Now I know it is unfair to compare the production techniques of the late sixties with today, but this sounded awful even by those standards. Tinny, yes, and poorly balanced with it. And I always maintained that while Nico had a distinctive voice, she could not actually sing. If it were not for the drumming, the whole of the Velvet Underground's output would have collapsed into a heap of disjointed noise. Yet even the drumming was not that great. Sure it was in time but it was pretty unimaginative and pedestrian.

And so, the Velvet Underground have continued in their inability to move me in the way that other bands of the era do. I know that they were supposed to be influential and they always get highly rated. I suspect that there is a lot of the influence of the style police in there though. I can just imagine someone believing that you really cannot claim to have any musical taste if you do not like the Velvet Underground. It is one of those things you need to admit to in order to be taken seriously, even if you do not believe it yourself. Frankly, I would rather listen to Cream or the Stones than this. The Sonics, the Blues Project or the Electric Prunes do more for Sorry, it is just too American - too druggy, New York Bohemian - for me.
Rating: 5/10