Album #15: Loaded (1970)
The Velvet Underground
Genre: Rock
Dedicated to MB Member: Sweet Nothing
1. "Who Loves the Sun"
2. "Sweet Jane"
3. "Rock & Roll"
4. "Cool It Down"
5. "New Age"
Side two
6. "Head Held High"
7. "Lonesome Cowboy Bill"
8. "I Found a Reason"
9. "Train Round the Bend"
10. "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'"
“…it’s still called a Velvet Underground record. But what it really is something else."
-Lou Reed
Marketed or intended to be marketed as the new direction of the band; “Loaded” with hits, the radio friendly fourth Velvet Underground album and second since the departure of founding member John Cale was ultimately the last with front man Lou Reed who left the band in a then suspected publicity stunt a few weeks before the albums release. Reed sighted some ill will associated with the editing and direction of the album and the influence and involvement of the label. Reed wrote all the songs for the album however and its legacy is that of the most Lou Reed influenced VU album of the bands short reign atop the Avant-Garde psychedelic scene. Adding to the tension and unhappiness for Reed was the influence and spotlighting of Doug Yule who saw himself as much the front man as he did Reed. Still the dichotomy that is a Reed\Yule lead vocal works for the album adding nuance and interest to what is a relatively safe and generic album otherwise.
Kicking off with the sublime “Who Loves the Sun” (featuring Doug Yule on lead vocals) “Loaded” is a lighter, more free and fun Velvet Underground far removed from the Warhol influence. Every time I hear “Sweet Jane” I am brought back to the high school days, the song’s rough and rigid melody chugs between a four chord progression with ease as Reed advances a philosophical narrative of kindness and love. “Rock and Roll” is a bit more typical of the band’s earlier days but still a distinct modern VU sound more mainstream then before. When I listen to music I like to be taken away from the everyday, nostalgia is a powerful component pertaining to one’s visceral reaction to the music. What does it remind you of, what emotions, memories or images does it evoke for you.
Ultimately it has to be viewed both as a success and a failure. It succeeded in producing the two longest lasting radio hits of the Velvet Underground catalogue as it intended to do and is critically acclaimed as one of the best albums of the year and the era. Contrast that with the bad taste and conflicting accounts of the albums participants and the fact it eventually led to the bands, for all intents and relative purposes, demise. An album I love for the music but hate for what it did to the band; In addition to the absence of Cale, VU standard Mo Tucker was not on drums either, a fact that irked Reed in retrospect. The growing disinterest of Reed may be evident in the albums run of the mill second side with occasional highlights and the satisfying finale “Oh Sweet Nuthin’” the only notable inclusions. Closing the album with the soulful and poignant R&B inspired classic was more fitting then they could have ever foreseen. In “I Found Reason” Reed sings “I found a reason to keep living…to keep singing.” These are both true but no longer would either be with the Velvets. The end of the era was officially on.