The Velvet Underground & Nico

Yeahhh, I'm still not that crazy about this one... For context, I had listened to this album quite a while ago when I was still just getting into music, and I remember being quite underwhelmed by it, never feeling the desire to give it another listen. However, after hearing "White Light/White Heat" about a month ago and loving it, I decided to give this another chance.

And I basically feel the same way I used to! Look, although I wholeheartedly believe this record deserves all the praise it gets and is rightfully hailed as one of the greatest and most influential rock albums of all time, I personally don't love it. To start, this project is really inconsistent. The high points here are astounding, ESPECIALLY "Venus In Furs" which I still can not believe came out in 1967, as it sounds unlike anything I've ever heard, but there are also multiple duds that just do nothing for me. More specifically, I wasn't a big fan of any of the songs that Nico did. It's just something about her monotone, comatose delivery and the way she pronounces things that simply annoys me. "Femme Fatale" has some nice vocal runs on the chorus that I quite like, but then throughout the entirety of "All Tomorrow's Parties" I can't bear her singing. Then there's also a couple songs like "Run Run Run" or "There She Goes Again" that I feel completely indifferent towards and that I only really think bring the record's pacing down.

Overall, although this project's ambition and influence is completely off the charts and I respect it massively for that, I personally find myself only really enjoying a handful of songs from the entire package. It doesn't have the same punch that "WL/WH" did, and it fails to keep me entertained from start to finish. Still though, I can't stress how incredibly impressive and ahead of its time it is!

Favorite tracks: Venus In Furs, Heroin, European Son
Least favorite track: All Tomorrow's Parties