USA / Germany, 1967, art rock / experimental rock
The Velvet Underground & Nico – The Velvet Underground & Nico: Considered by many music nerds to be one of the best albums of all time, The Velvet Underground & Nico sits at #4 on RYM’s all-time chart, and it’s only one of four that I think should be in the top 10. The other six shouldn’t be there. Anyway, about this album: it’s got elements of noise rock in it, and I hate noise rock (lookin’ at you, Sonic Youth), so if I love this album so much—and I do—they must be doing something right. Perhaps it’s Nico’s mitigating folk influence? I really can’t put my finger on why I love this album. Perhaps it’s having heard “Heroin” before hearing the whole album and just sitting there dumbfounded at that viola. My wife just pointed out to me that I clearly love this album because it’s one of the few that, when I spin it, I always have some new comment on. This time it was the hypnotic structure of “Venus in Furs”, a song I want to hear while stumbling home at sunrise after all-night revelry. One time I gave my student an F for wearing the banana on a T-shirt and not knowing where it came from.
Museum Musica 