AR: Loaded

The Velvet Underground - Loaded (1970)

There are two famous quotes that accompany this legendary VU album. The first is from an executive at Atlantic Records who allegedly requested an album "loaded with hits;" hence the album's title and its overt steering toward shorter pop tunes. If you put the noisy freak-out sessions of VU's prior albums (e.g., "Heroin," "Sister Ray") next to the radio-friendly ditties featured here, the contrast is stark beyond belief*. The second quote comes from guitarist Sterling Morrison who claimed of Loaded that "[i]t showed that we could have, all along, made truly commercial sounding records." This is essentially the artist's-intent stamp, that the previous noise jumbles were conscious artistic decisions and not for want of pop-craftsmanship abilities. And, in the end, both quotes are incredibly hard to deny. As little as it sounds like a typical VU record, it is a pop masterpiece that still bears the band's undeniable stamp. Incredibly entertaining from top to bottom, featuring some gen-u-ine five star tunes, and incorporating a variety of styles, Loaded is so good that it made an appearance in a Buffy** episode some 30 years later.

* - Part of this is admittedly a personnel issue - John Cale had left the band by this point - but there is little doubt that Loaded, the VU's most commercially successful disc, was a severe departure from the feedbacky art rock of yore.

** - The dialog:
Oz [looking through Giles's records]: Wow. Either I'm moving in with you, or you're letting me borrow your albums.
Giles: I think saving the world from imminent danger is more important than any record.
Oz: Even this one? [holds up Loaded]
Giles: [long pause] Well, a case could be made, I guess...

I'm severely tipping my hand here, but yes, this is one of *those* albums. Lou Reed threw out some absolutely superb songs here, and the performance is just the right match of tightness (in terms of nothing out of place) and a loose, casual effort that gives a special, authentic-live feel. The greatest thing about it is that simultaneous unity of "let's write some singles" purpose combined with styles from all over the map. And even though these are a kind of pop perfection, the ragged edges and slacker deliveries of the vocals balance that out so there's no impression whatsoever that this is some kind of glossed, mindless tripe. Few albums in my collection make me frankly smile so much. I'll just go ahead and give it the track by track here:

"Who Loves the Sun" - the album kicks off with an interesting misdirected guitar blip that jumps to a chugging guitar number. It's a simple mid-tempo rocker that achieves greatness via its uber-melodramatic, heartbroken teenaged lament - "who loves the sun / who cares that it makes plants grow / who cares what it does / since you broke my heart?" It goes on to basically deny the importance of every mundane thing vis a vis the narrator's broken heart. All of this is delivered with the cheeriest of "Ba ba ba" backing vocals. I can't count the number of times I've heard this song, and it still makes me laugh. It ends with a baroque throw-away passage before hitting the last chorus. Great opener in that it thoroughly establishes what the disc is up to: a standard sort of rock tune, but with a ripping twist injected. Fun times.

"Sweet Jane" - need we even mention this? The opener fades into an intricate multi-guitar, interlaced trebly Valentine's Day fluttering. This stops abruptly, and we get a terrific, classic, and utterly simply four chord riff. Reed's spoken-cool vocal just trips over the top of the guitars and then breaks for the near-yelled "SWEET JANE!!!!" choruses. Tons of classic lines in this one and a superb feel throughout; incredible that something so simple can be so divine. A top all-time rock song.

"Rock n' Roll" - Speaking of, that is followed by another anthemic, upbeat and fairly simple rocker that speaks of the live-saving qualities of R n' R. Besides being utterly infectious with an energetic style, this song definitely speaks to a certain subset of the population, those who have spent a lot of moments alone seeking salvation in the form of music. The guitar solos are iconic, too, alternating between drawn out, single note rings to multi-note blitzes. Another classic tune; this and "SJ" are the ones that found (and find) their way onto the radio.

(Incidentally, this song is routinely covered by Phish in concert, one of the tunes that made it into their catalog after they covered it in '98. They, unsurprisingly, stretch it way out and turn those solos into a Trey-a-thon. At my first Phish show (9.25.99), they launched into this one about halfway through the second set. It was the first song I recognized* (I was completely unfamiliar with their music at that point) and it was followed by a slick segue into "Also Sprach Zarathustra," the second tune I recognized, and THAT was followed by a segue into "Frankenstein," the third and final song of the night that I knew. If I wasn't hooked by the funk-infused "Tube" opener of that show, I was definitely hooked by the time this trio rolled around. It remains one of my all-time favorite Phish passages).

* - Well, I recognized that Sleeping Monkey was a blatant "Let It Be" rip-off, but that doesn't really count.

"Cool It Down" - is sort of a hipster blues bar, piano-rolling, slow-down cool-guy rocker. It features a doubled lead vocal, both of which are spoken-sung, which is kinda bizarre in itself - makes everything *just* off, and that somehow adds to the cool slink of the song. The lyrics are roughly about some illicit sexual encounter with someone named "Linda Lee / Because she's got the power / to love me by the hour / gives me W-L-O-V-E" (parts of which are sung in screeching emphatic falsetto). Good, fun stuff.

"New Age" - a sad slow down, soft-sung, 1950s-era plain ballad about loneliness in the space between a starstruck man and a has-been actress. This pretty, sad tune takes a turn for the transcendent in it s"I'll come running to you" choruses, and this only gets pushed further into redemptive stratospheres with "Something's got a hold on me / And I don't know what." It's a middle of the album slow down that manages to maintain the energy in a different form, providing even more balance to the album.

"Head Held High" - an overt Mick Jagger homage, this is a straight-forward dirty blues rocker that easily would have been home on Exile on Main Street. It opens with a quick vocal "Ahhhhhh" fade in and has a very Who-esque instrumental bridge. Closes with a big, full-party chorus repeat. Great basement kegger tune.

"Lonesome Cowboy Bill" - A quick shuffle country rocker with a yodeling component at the end of each chorus. Fast and catchy, gets the people rodeo-dancin' in its scant 2:45.

"I Found a Reason" - Another way slowed down piece that evokes borderline Doo-wop work, both in its repeated "Ba-ba-ba-ba" opening descending vocals, back-up "oohs" and it's big, harmonized choruses. This also has one of those AWESOME '50s spoken word sections which, among other things, contains the superbly absurd line "I've walked down life's lonely highways / hand in hand with myself." While this is clearly a parody of sorts, it's delivered with utter sincerity, and the ending vocal coda is quite a pay-off. Funny and somehow beautiful, too.

"Train Comin' 'Round the Bend" - Probably the closest thing to a trad VU tune, this is a sparse, pulsing, feedback- and droning-guitar-drenched simple song. The vocals betray pure frustration with failed endeavors, and the tight 3:22 length gives just enough of a taste of this style of bordering-on-spazz guitar work to make the point. Nice.

"Oh! Sweet Nuthin" - the other five star masterpiece on the disc, this is a slowed down space ballad that never fails to evoke a calming, meditative state. It's got a winding lead guitar over the simplest of bass and drum progressions and a perfectly plaintive, devastating lead vocal. It's the only song on the disc that breaks the 4:40 mark, and thus kinda breaks the single-oriented theme, but its epic scale (7:24) is decidedly appropriate. Its position at closer and the lighter-held-high guitar outro are perfect - this is definitely up there in the all-time album closer pantheon. I mean, sure, on some level its ridiculous - this is a "Hey Jude" kind of sin, where "she ain't got nothin' at all" stands in for na-nas. But in context, it absolutely works and gives an appropriate, cathartic sigh of a finish to one beast of an album.

Loaded, in short, gets it done. It's amazing that the same band that blew amps left and right at Andy Warhol's Factory parties was also capable of crafting something this tight and stylistically varied. Exquisitely balanced with fantastic openers and closers, killer singles and nary a dull moment in between - the ballads more than carry their weight - I can't recommend this one enough. It ultimately marked the demise of the band, but if every rock outfit could go out on a note like this, well, I'd have a lot more track by track reviews to write. Sigh.

(Oh, and if "Sweet Jane" doesn't get you, if "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'" doesn't make you want to lie on your back and watch sunsets and clouds pass, then I offer that nothing in rock ever will. Take your limbic system to the mechanic; it's broken. :))

Status: Desert Island Recommended
Nyet's Fave: "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'"