Hello!
45 years ago this album was released...
Forget the first and second Velvet
Underground albums. They are so revered, over-written about, hailed and
acclaimed, set upon plinths in the Rock'n'Roll Hall Of Fame and worshiped by
all of Those Who Know and the rest of us who unquestioningly follow the
pointing fingers of Those Who Know that it is impossible anymore to hear the
music. It is easy to admire 'The Velvet Underground & Nico' and 'White
Light/White Heat' - because the band
deliberately set out to make records that would impress the cognoscenti; they
knew which buttons to push (songs about S&M and drugs, dressed in
distorted, discordant and ugly noise) - if you buy into that living-on-the-edge
pose.
The Velvets' third, eponymous, album is - due to its absence of shock
tactics - the real deal. Unpretentious (the nine-minute silliness of 'The
Murder Mystery' aside), lyrically and instrumentally spare - which must have
been quite a sonic slap in the face for 1969, after Beatles-led advances in
studio sophistication and the rise of the guitar hero (Clapton, Hendrix, Page)
and the advance towards muso virtuosity - they provide a sound that is entirely
simpatico with the album sleeve, an intimate Billy Name black-and-white snap of
the group in drab duds (only Mo Tucker's shiny blouse hints at their glamorous
job). The CD cover includes a second photo taken that night - and it's pleasing
to see that, in both, Lou Reed is in relaxed mood, pulling non-rock-star silly
faces.
White America's musical contribution is Country & Western and,
though they share the same tenets of rhythmic simplicity, the Velvet
Underground in almost other respect rejects the aspirations of the pioneer spirit,
the religious fervour, the epic landscapes, the scorched earth and the
bountiful harvests. No, their music is City & Eastern - it's squalid
tenement blocks permanently in a skyscraper shadow, it's the stink of
half-chewed hamburgers, the taste of bummed cigarettes and cafe coffee, it's
black and white TVs that can't get a decent reception (so they never saw Neil
Armstrong & co. landing on the moon). There's no flowery poetry here, no
genius musicianship. There's no fury in the playing, no ecstatic visions, and
very little tension. They sound so tired ("Help me in my weakness,"
they sing plaintively in the very pretty "Jesus"), the backbeat is so
slack it's almost an afterthought, the vocal occasionally barely rises to a
spoken whisper. But these are not faults. These are the elements - like Lou's
goofy self-mocking giggly vocal on "Beginning To See The Light" -
that give the record a rare humanity. It's an open-hearted warts-and-all
portrait of young, vulnerable people in all their yearning, keening,
plain-speaking, perfect imperfection.
Some records hit you instantly. They are brash and loud and command your
attention. This one is like your shy friend who has been sitting just out of
your eyeline for a long time before
you notice him/her. You have to make the first move and, though initially
reticent and withdrawn, your friend, like a flower, will open his/her petals
and reveal a beauty in the sunniness of your smile.
Mr Lee says: "I think people who have faults are a lot more interesting than people who are perfect."
