The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground

The only Velvet Underground song I've really heard is Stephanie Says because I watched The Royal Tenenbaums (more than once). A few months ago I found the art car BMW that Andy Warhol painted and thought it was the absolute coolest thing I had seen in life up until that point. Hell, I still think it's damn near the coolest thing I'll ever see, except that I haven't seen it in real life. I looked through a huge art book about Andy Warhol later that weekend and thought to myself "someday I'll listen to that album he painted with the banana on it...". Well, I still haven't done that, because the record store didn't have it. Therefore, I'm listening to the self titled album by The Velvet Underground.



This is an incredibly solid record, even with the song The Murder Mystery - coming in at 8:59. Not that it's a bad song, but I don't really understand it too much. I think it's one of those tracks where you need to be tripping to "get it". Well, I don't do that, so I'll just have to say that it's a kind of strange track. Alas, there are other songs than that one. I didn't write as I was listening like I did the last review, but I listened to it all the way through twice. Except for The Murder Mystery, it has voices on the left and right and is really hard to listen to on my headphones.

Anyway, the whole record is incredibly smooth. A really soft and almost gloomy opening (Candy Says) goes right into an upbeat rocking song - What Goes On - one of my favourites on this record. It has such great guitars sound in it, and thanks to Google, I found one of my favourite bands, The National, covered it recently. Break time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5krE7MP5QY
(Fun fact: I was considering going to NYC for that event because they were playing, and also because comedy group Stella were performing that night as well. I didn't go though, I went 2 weeks later for Saves The Day)

The entire feel of this album could be described as "chill". No, not Miller Chill, it's so much better than shitty beer. It just has and maintains a cool, smooth, chill sound right up until the amazing ending track (After Hours). It makes me want to wear sunglasses indoors and play guitar. Any sound that makes me feel that way is a good thing.

Two favourite tracks:
What Goes On
Pale Blue Eyes