![]() Despite Strong’s soaring Smokey Robinson-esque tones, its mood, in a strange, oblique way really does seem to be at the heart of downbeat songs like “Heroin.” The ominous scrapings and manic honking of composer La Mont Young’s “17 XII 63 NYC The Fire Is a Mirror (excerpt)” – released here for the first time – are equally close to “Heroin” and even more, to Velvet Underground and Nico songs like “European Son” or “Black Angel’s Death Song,” but it’s hard to imagine anyone listening to it many times for even complicated kinds of pleasure. A feral live “Roadrunner” by Bo Diddley captures the electricity of early rock ‘n’ roll that the band harnessed, while “The Wind” by Nolan Strong and the Diablos is a beautifully haunting and funereal piece of ‘50s doo-wop. ![]() The Velvet Underground is unusual in being both 100% authentically rock ‘n’ roll but also authentically avant-garde, and the album shows their roots in both genres. Not a huge shock that it wasn’t a big hit though John Cale’s avant garde arrangement gives it an almost atonal heaviness at odds with its bubblegum pop pretentions. A pastiche/parody of all those ‘50s/early ‘60s pop songs about dance crazes, it’s surprisingly noisy and experimental while also being pretty catchy and very obviously Lou Reed. ![]() The Primitives’ “The Ostrich” is ridiculous but lots of fun. The non-VU tracks are a mixed bunch but never less than interesting. Surprisingly, the much maligned Loaded era has two tracks, inevitably the superb “Sweet Jane,” but also the lovely and atmospheric outtake, “Ocean.” The choices are almost arbitrary, but four songs “Venus in Furs,” “I’m Waiting for the Man,” “Heroin” (the superior mono mix) and “Sunday Morning” are taken from their truly seminal debut The Velvet Underground and Nico, which means that both While Light/White Heat and The Velvet Underground are somewhat underrepresented, especially the former, with only an admittedly epic/gruelling 19-minute live version of “Sister Ray” covering that era. It goes without saying that the Velvet Underground tracks are phenomenal, but still: the Velvet Underground tracks are phenomenal. Separated from the film, too, it feels very much like a snapshot of the band, rather than a deep dive into their oeuvre there are only 16 songs across the two discs, 11 of those Velvet Underground tracks, the least familiar of which are the superb version of “Foggy Notion” and the lovely live “After Hours” that were included in the Super Deluxe edition of the band’s eponymous third album a few back. The related tracks, although relatively few, are important, because although the Velvet Underground’s music is naturally the star of the show, there’s nothing here that Velvets fans won’t already be very familiar with. The music is just one aspect of Todd Haynes’ kaleidoscopic Velvet Underground documentary, but shorn of its narrative, the album remains an interesting mix of Velvets originals, music that influenced the band and related bits and pieces (an early song written and performed by Lou Reed/John Cale as The Primitives, Nico’s “Chelsea Girls”).
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