{"id":3462,"date":"2014-01-29T00:58:01","date_gmt":"2014-01-29T05:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jimhaku.com\/blog\/?p=3462"},"modified":"2014-01-29T01:00:45","modified_gmt":"2014-01-29T06:00:45","slug":"velvet-underground-vu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jimhaku.com\/blog\/velvet-underground-vu\/","title":{"rendered":"Velvet Underground | VU"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"VU\"<\/a><\/p>\n

RIP, Lou Reed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just feels so insincere and like a cop-out. To me, \u2018RIP\u2019 is the microwave dinner of posthumous honours\u201d ~ Lou Reed <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well…fuck you then, Lou Reed. I mean…jeez.<\/p>\n

I originally was going to end the post like that. I got complicated feelings about Lou Reed but it’s a little much to make it into a punchline. And it’s not really fair to make a Velvet Underground review only about him. But this is the format I have chosen to talk about my bullshit. The man’s dead and this is the only physical release I own with his music on it. (If John Cale just died I would be forced to reach for the same record. Yes, this would be a serious gaping hole if I was a serious collector of serious music.)<\/p>\n

There’s a practical reason this is my only Velvets record, it was cheapest. (Altho it is currently somewhat pricey on Amazon.<\/a>) Might have even got it for free. Had a few neighbors at one point in the 90s who just dumped boxes of vinyl on the curb as they replaced their collection with CDs. It was not a more enlightened time. The sleeve is in decent enough shape, but I like the record itself. I like that they were on Verve. It’s like, wow, legit! <\/p>\n

Songs off the first album with Nico<\/a>, and Transformer<\/i><\/a> are really my favorites. But those songs are just always kinda around. Never felt the need to own those records. And you usually never see them for less than full-price.<\/p>\n

Altho I like the record a lot, I rarely flip it over. B-side does not win this time, those songs really do sound like leftovers. This is a basically comp of outtakes; every song on the 1st side however, seem like classics it’s hard to believe they didn’t use. (Reed re-recorded all of them solo. I prefer these versions by a long mile.) I used to have the CD reissue of Loaded<\/i> (sold it); the second disc has different versions of I’m Sticking With You<\/i> and Ocean<\/i>. I’m Sticking With You<\/i> is a cute song that Mo sings but it’s kind of a goof. Ocean<\/i>—it’s just perfect on this record. The cliche in my head I’m trying to avoid is “understated masterpiece”. I think ‘masterpiece’ is overselling it, but other versions are a little too overthought or overworked. I believe all my feelings about Lou Reed can summed up by listening to the VU and solo versions of Ocean<\/i> back to back. At least until recently. Going thorough some of of his stuff I never listened to and posts about details of his life I kinda feel bad for him now.<\/p>\n

I Can’t Stand It<\/i> is one of the great Rock ‘n’ Roll songs of all time. It makes the song Rock ‘n’ Roll<\/i> (from Loaded<\/i>) corny by comparison. I dunno, some of his schtick I don’t really buy. Especially the later stuff. He just went off in a direction I don’t care about at all. The atmosphere of some of these Velvets songs is so great, you really have to credit the rest of the group. The way way Ocean<\/i> ends, this version…that’s just one the best things ever recorded. It just hits a perfect unnameable emotion every time. The words don’t tell a story or nothing. No idea what it really means. Perfect.<\/p>\n

I also really do love Metal Machine Music<\/i> too, but I got it off Soulseek. %<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RIP, Lou Reed. \u201cIt just feels so insincere and like a cop-out. To me, \u2018RIP\u2019 is the microwave dinner of posthumous honours\u201d ~ Lou Reed Well…fuck you then, Lou Reed. I mean…jeez. I originally was going to end the post like that. I got complicated feelings about Lou Reed but it’s a little much to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[26],"tags":[256,598,597,302,596],"class_list":["post-3462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-records-review","tag-60s","tag-compilation","tag-lou-reed","tag-rip","tag-veltet-underground"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1m3oy-TQ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimhaku.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimhaku.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimhaku.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimhaku.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimhaku.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3462"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimhaku.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3680,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimhaku.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3462\/revisions\/3680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimhaku.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimhaku.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimhaku.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}