The Velvet Underground. & Nico. Andy Warhol. Mono Original Cover VG

$

78

The Velvet Underground & Nico. Verve Records(V-5008). Mono.

Recorded in 1966 during Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia event tour, The Velvet Underground & Nico would gain notoriety for its experimentalist performance sensibilities, as well as its focus on controversial subject matter expressed in many of their songs.

Theirs was the dim world of drugs and sexual perversion, of heroin addiction and the desperate loss of hope that goes with it. Their concern was with death and violence... Oozing evil and lubricity, they made every other group look like kid stuff, and they made a lot of people nervous... There is no word for their sound but sometimes it seems as if a presence has taken it over, perhaps even His Satanic Majesty himself. You can easily imagine someone performing black masses with the Velvet Underground’s albums. Not for the kiddies.

Their world view was dark and nihilistic at a time when everyone else was singing about peace and flowers... The Doors (whose first album was a hit when Velvet Underground & Nico was released) had a darker vision than The Velvet Underground! Even Jefferson Airplane, whose Surrealistic Pillow LP defined for the time capsules the romance of the Hippie Moment, didn’t turn a blind eye to the dark side of the counterculture-- and the Airplane and The Doors were the most popular bands in America during the Velvets’ time.

The Velvet Underground & Nico (the latter being a Warhol-recommended "chanteuse" who departed after the album was released to pursue an even more quixotic solo career) does function as a kind of "map of their music" (to paraphrase The Doors’ description of their own debut LP). The overall impression created is dark, noisy, more than a little paranoid and seemingly amoral (as opposed to immoral)-- "Heroin" makes a point of being neither for nor against, but simply about; similarly, no specific judgment is passed upon the characters in songs like "I’m Waiting For The Man" and "Venus In Furs." The album concludes with "The Black Angel’s Death Song" and "European Son," likably self-indulgent exercises in sonic (and verbal) envelope-pushing. But the ballads Lou wrote for Nico to sing (including the album opener "Sunday Morning" ) provide a disarmingly sweet balance, and even a specific reassurance: "When you think the night has seen your mind, / That inside you’re twisted and unkind, / Let me stand to show that you are blind-- / Please put down your hands, / ‘Cause I see you-- / I’ll be your mirror...".

Cover 6 or VG- gatefold, edge wear, ring wear, surface wear, promo hole lower left, tear upper right, no Banana, uncensored Hanging Down Man back cover/Record 7 or VG black and shiny with a light few marks, plays great loud, heavy vinyl, blue/silver labels.

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