The Complete VU

I'm not sure why I bought this box set. It was really something of an impulse buy. I'd enjoyed the Velvet Underground greatest hits CD Words and Music of Lou Reed. My friend had it and I'd already been a minor fan of his solo work but once I heard VU I was hooked. When I saw the box set I just bought it. I spent almost $100 Canadian for a box set that had maybe five songs I knew I liked on it.

It ruined my life. For two months it made me crazy. There are five CDs to this set. There is so much music it was all I listened to for months. I still wasn't even sure if I liked it yet. So I lent it to my friend for a while. Soon after I was going over to his house solely to listen to it. I missed it and quickly started borrowing back the CDs one by one so that I could enjoy it in doses. Now it is one of my prize possessions. I have listened to these CD on repeat for weeks at a time (literally.) They also opened my eyes to many other talented musicians. I became a fan of Iggy Pop and David Bowie through Lou. I got into Pearl Jam after my friend Tom showed me a picture of Eddie Vedder on stage wearing a Lou Reed Transformer T-shirt. This is a set of classic recordings from the sixties that isn't the top forty material of the Beach Boys or the Monkeys. This is the true birth of Rock'n'Roll.

The box set is made up of four Velvet Underground albums recorded from 1965-'70. The first CD is six unreleased early tracks, some of which appear in their final form on the actual albums. Each of the albums has the closet mixes and other unreleased stuff tacked on to the beginning and end of the album. The first disc is my least favourite.

Disc 2 is the Velvet Underground and Nico album with some live tracks included after the album is over. I don't really like Nico. Her voice doesn't mesh well with the sounds generated by Reed's guitar and John Cale's electric viola. I see that was part of the purpose but I still don't like it. Lou Reed's grovely speaking/singing is far more satisfying. I do like the irony of Nico singing a song about her written by Reed, Femme Fatale. The line when she sings "the things she does to please, she's such a little tease" makes me smile. This album has what was probably the closest VU came to a hit with Heroin, a song penned after Reed read William S. Burrough's Junkie. Along with the masochistic anthem Venus In Furs and The Black Angel's Death Song, Velvet Underground pushed rock into a new grittier direction. I really like the last five songs starting with The Black Angel's Death Song. European Son has a wild car crash sound, something I can't compare to anything I've heard before or since. Melody Laughter is one song where I like Nico's voice. She chants and sings in this strange American Native style while the band really rocks out. It Was A Pleasure Then and Chelsea Girls finish off the disc. The last four songs on the disc are all over seven minutes long.

Disc 3 is probably my favourite. For some reason the sound of this disc makes me think of a really intense pick-up road hockey game. There is a lot of fuzz and distortion, clanging and banging, with some great song writing underneath. The White Light/White Heat album starts at the title track, track 8. Before that there are some really dirty demos takes that have some of Reed's best vocal work. Once the actual album's six songs kick in it is pure listening pleasure/pain. White Light White Heat is raw and plows through its 2 minutes and 45 seconds like a flash flood. Following it is an interesting experimental track called The Gift. Through one channel it is just a short story written by Reed. The story is about a guy named Waldo Jeffers who mails himself to his girlfriend with tragic consequences. On the other channel there is a ten minute jam. They can be heard separately or together depending on how your levels are set. Lady Godiva's operation has some weird iron lung sounds and equally weird cut in vocals by John Cale. Sister Ray is my favourite VU song. It is 17 minutes of chaos. The lyrics tell of some story about being doped up on heroin while getting some oral gratification from a prostitute when the police barge in. At one point the noise is almost deafening (even at low volumes, not that you should listen at low volumes, it is meant to rock.) You can hear them screw up but they keep playing because it doesn't matter. This song is the heart of Rock’n’Roll, totally non-PC, DIY genius.

The self-titled third album (disc four) is considerably gentler. This is far more paced and perhaps more mature. It starts with a live version of What Goes On that has my favourite guitar solo in it. The album starts immediately afterwards with Candy Says. Like the other "Says" songs, Reed sings about girls and paints their picture through their own words. Candy is different because she's not a girl. She's the transvestite mentioned in Reed's solo effort Walk On The Wild Side. This is one of the sweetest songs I've ever heard. There is so much empathy in Reed for this character. It sets a far more emotional mode for the disc. There is still plenty of experimentation but not in the noise/distortion range. Pale Blue Eyes is another song that is just beautiful. I have heard many covers of many VU songs but the Hole cover of this song from the Ask For It single is the best. I like when a song can hit someone in such a way that they can really personalize it and not just copy it (ahem Primus w/ Ozzy doing NIB, garbage!...cough cough.) Beginning To See The Light has some of my favourite lines in it including "There are problems in these times, but ooooohh none of them are mine." This CD has some really strange songs like I'm Sticking With You. I'm baffled by the Murder Mystery, which has multiple vocalists singing different lyrics at the same time, making it a real mystery.

Disc 5 probably took the longest for me to appreciate. Now it gets as much play as disc 3. It starts off with a song I don't really care for, Who Loves The Sun (not a Beatles cover,) but soon picks up with Sweet Jane. Sweet Jane is better known by the covers of it by Mott The Hoople and The Cowboy Junkies. Rock And Roll is a song about a paralysed girl who finds comfort in a rock and roll station. I really love some of the lines from this disc like one in The New Age where Reed sings "Can I have your autograph? He said to the fat, blonde actress." I didn't like Lonesome Cowboy Bill at first but it has grown on me. I Found A Reason is like an old Elvis tune with a talking part in the middle. I like this song better every time I hear it. It is quite simple but beautiful because of it's simplicity and sincerity. Oh Sweet Nuthin was what really turned me on to this disc. It has a great build up that when it finally peaks and descends you feel like you've really been someplace. It has strong minimalist themes about leaving all that you don't need behind. Three of my favourite songs appear after the album. Sad Song, has some pseudo-historical content. Ocean is my second favourite VU song and makes me cry sometimes if I listen to it at the right time (I'm not so macho I can't admit to tears.) Followed by Ride Into The Sun. Although The Loaded album has a slightly different line up it is still exemplary of Reed's awesome writing.

Along with the discs comes an 84 page book with the history of the band and all kinds of cool pictures and concert posters. My only complaint is that the spine is really cheap and the pages fall out if you open the book too far (ie. if you laid it on a table and had both covers touching the table, pages just fall out.) There is lots of great information. I bought the Lou Reed biography Transformer and it doesn't have as concise a history of VU.

There is an incredible amount of music on this set and it is set up in a really well thought out fashion. The track lists mesh the extra stuff into their chronological places on the discs without interrupting the integrity of the original albums. This set forced me to buy some ten other Lou Reed and VU discs not including the two copies of the Loaded album I bought separately (one for a girl I had a crush on and another because it deserved to be loved and not sit in a bin at a used CD store.)

There are a lot of subjects presented in these songs that some people might find offensive. These are not songs that spout bad words and talk of devil worship but they do have some questionable material. Satellite of Love is a song where Reed discusses quite subtly his fascination with voyeurism and porn. He does not say "Hey look at me I'm talking about PORNO," but rather deals with his personal traits that make him interested in such things. There were lots of drugs used in the time/place that it was created (Andy Warhol's factory) and that comes through too. This does not mean that you couldn't appreciate the emotion that Lou Reed exposes during his performances. Merely that one should be aware that this is not a politically correct collection by any standards.

Velvet Underground's impact on pop and rock music has been tremendous yet they are still a generally unheard of band. I hope I could share some of my love for VU and Lou Reed with you and perhaps you'll give it a listen too.