Recommendations of the Editorial team
If you listen to a classic rock station today, why don’t they play the Velvet Underground? Why only Boston and Led Zeppelin? And why are the Stones so much more popular than the Velvets?
Okay, I get why they’re more popular. But part of me always thought it should actually be the other way around. The Velvet Underground were way ahead of their time. And their music was strange. I still couldn’t believe that it wasn’t the most listened to music in the world.
Listening to these four studio albums today is like reading a good book set in a distant time. When I hear “The Velvet Underground And Nico” or “Loaded,” I feel like I’ve been transported to Andy Warhol’s Factory in the 1960s or to Max’s Kansas City. The way Lou Reed wrote and sang – about drugs and sex and the people around him – was so matter-of-fact, so unpretentious.
Reed could be romantic in the way he described crazy situations, but he was also intensely real. Poetry and journalism in one.
The Velvet Underground: “White Light / White Heat”:
A lot of people associate the Velvets with feedback and noise. “White Light/White Heat” is the kind of record you have to be in the right mood for. You have to sit in a fucked up bar and be in a really bad mood.
Mo Tucker sounded hotter than Nico
But the Velvets also made some really nice music. “Sunday Morning” for example – with John Cale’s viola – “Candy Says”, “All Tomorrow’s Parties”. I can only imagine this song with Nico as the singer, although Maureen Tucker had a cool voice. There was definitely something feminine about her. I thought she sounded hotter than Nico.
In the beginning, the Strokes were clearly based on the mood of the Velvets. When we started the band and I wrote the first songs, I listened to “Loaded” nonstop. For four whole months there was only “Loaded” and a greatest hits album from them Beach Boys.
A lot of our guitar tones are based on what Reed and Sterling Morrison did. I really wish we could have copied them more. We didn’t get close enough. But that was okay because it became more our thing.
