After The Velvet Underground cut three albums for the jazz-oriented Verve label that earned them lots of notoriety but negligible sales, the group signed with industry powerhouse Atlantic Records in 1970; label head Ahmet Ertegun supposedly asked Lou Reed to avoid sex and drugs in his songs, and instead focus on making an album "loaded with hits." Loaded was the result, and with appropriate irony it turned out to be the first VU album that made any noticeable impact on commercial radio -- and also their swan song, with Reed leaving the group shortly before its release. With John Cale long gone from the band, Doug Yule highly prominent (he sings lead on four of the ten tracks), and Maureen Tucker absent on maternity leave, this is hardly a purist's Velvet Underground album. But while Lou Reed always wrote great rock & roll songs with killer hooks, on Loaded his tunes were at last given a polished but intelligent production that made them sound like the hits they should have been, and there's no arguing that "Sweet Jane" and "Rock and Roll" are as joyously anthemic as anything he's ever recorded. And if this release generally maintains a tight focus on the sunny side of the VU's personality (or would that be Reed's personality?), "New Age" and "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'" prove he had hardly abandoned his contemplative side, and "Train Around the Bend" is a subtle but revealing metaphor for his weariness with the music business. Sterling Morrison once said of Loaded, "It showed that we could have, all along, made truly commercial sounding records," but just as importantly, it proved they could do so without entirely abandoning their musical personality in the process. It's a pity that notion hadn't occurred to anyone a few years earlier. AMG.
listen here
Thursday, September 8, 2011
The Velvet Underground - Loaded 1970
Popular Posts
-
Types Of Neckwear: Neckties, Ascots, Bolo Ties And More Although the traditional necktie is the preferred neck wear for most men , it is...
-
WUN has been known as one of the most significant acid folk albums of the 70s. Although his continuous effort during his entire career throu...
-
Current info about twitter Ashley Tisdale and Sarah Hyland party beach is not always the easiest thing to locate. Fortunately, this report ...
-
From Home to Home is quite similar to the albums this group had put out in the late '60s as the Kaleidoscope (the British Kaleidoscope...
-
There's not a youth today that hasn't best for you to read kate moss picture , and if there is one such person, the Fashion of Kate ...
-
Watt had many of the same ingredients as its predecessor, Cricklewood Green , but wasn't nearly as well thought out. The band had obvi...
-
Hard/Blues Rock band formed in Memphis in 1968 by Baker, who'd fronted local faves The Blazers, the initial line-up evolved to include d...
-
The debut album from the Atlanta-based funk aggregate spawned three singles and a host of soul numbers. The first single from the album was...
-
Back in 1966 when Eric Clapton delivered his heavily overdriven wailing blues licks on the “Beano” album with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, t...
-
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - 4 Way Street 1971 A double live album originally released on April 7, 1971 by CSN&Y is an indispensa...
0 comments:
Post a Comment