The Velvet Underground - VU

Just a dynamo of a record, especially the masterpiece "Foggy Notion."
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Allmusic: Composed principally of songs that would have appeared on the Velvet Underground's unreleased fourth MGM album, this is only slightly less impressive than their first three LPs, striking a balance between the searing pre-punk of their first two efforts and the calm eloquence of the third. "Lisa Says," "Ocean," and "Stephanie Says" are some of Lou Reed's greatest ballads; "I Can't Stand It" is one of the Velvets' toughest and best conventional hard rock songs. Some of the other tunes are slight (if engaging) in comparison with the Velvets' prime work. Many of the tracks were re-recorded by Reed on his early solo albums, and in every instance, the Velvets' versions are better.

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The Velvet Underground - Squeeze

AG reminded me of this little artifact this morning. Honestly, I'd forgotten it fairly easily after coming across it a few months ago. Not really knowing it existed I stumbled across it in my endless blog search, was really intrigued, gave one listen, got it and moved on. However, AG's curiosity has brought me back to it... to see if it deserved another listen, a reconsideration. Due to the signature and overlap it's virtually impossible to mentally separate this band and output from the version of the VU that put together Loaded (one of the top 50s LPs ever). If you can get over the fact that Doug Yule is aping Lou Reed at every turn (Reed-lite - refer to the blogpost linked below), the songs are competent, strongly vanilla but really well-performed and well-arranged. If you listen to this for nothing else, just give "Caroline" a try - an interesting hybrid of the striped-shirt Beach Boys and Reeds hyper/smack doo-wop thing.


You listen. You be the Judge Reinhold. You comment. Ok?


Here's a great post from Flowering Toilet slamming Yule's VU record. Well-written and poignant in the defense of the VU name, even if a little hyperbole-filled.

"First of all, I would point out that Squeeze was not promoted as a Doug Yule solo album, it was promoted--in the most exploitative manner imaginable (with cover art and type script that recalled Loaded no less)--as a Velvet Underground album. There is a very good reason for this: no one was interested in a freakin' Doug Yule solo album. Doug Yule could not have gotten a record deal, even in the UK, if he had opted to release this under the name "The Doug Yule Experience." Yule and sleazeball Velvet's manager Steve Sesnick decided to "squeeze" a few extra bucks out of the Velvet Underground name by foisting a fraud onto the public."

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Allmusic: After Lou Reed left the Velvet Underground, bassist Doug Yule took control of the group. Retaining the name "The Velvet Underground," Yule assembled several new lineups of the band and toured the U.S. By the time Yule's VU recorded their first album, the band featured Boston-based vocalist Willie Alexander and was playing a set of conventional pop/rock songs. Squeeze, the only album recorded with a bastardized version of the Velvet Underground, was released in 1973 to uniformly terrible reviews; Yule broke up the band shortly after its release. Over the years, Squeeze has not only become increasingly rare -- after all, not many copies of the record were pressed -- it has disappeared from the official Velvet Underground discography, and Yule's attempt to prolong the band's career has virtually been forgotten.


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