Velvet Underground - White Light White Heat
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Velvet UndergroundEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 1996-05-07
Music Label: Polydor / Umgd
Soundtracks:
- White Light/White Heat
- The Gift
- Lady Godiva's Operation
- Here She Comes Now
- I Heard Her Call My Name
- Sister Ray
Free Music Notes for White Light White Heat
Free Music Review: The album that warped my fragile little mind...
Hit: 5 Stars
Okay, so many years ago, I can't remember the exact year, but I was a teenager so it seems like a few billion, I was visiting a friend of mine in upstate New York. This friend was schizophrenic, although at the time I knew little about such things; I only knew he was freakin' out of his mind. (apologies to mental health and disabilities rights advocates, whom I think do good and valuable work, but this guy was loopy!) At the time, my musical obsessions were the Beatles and Pink Floyd, and I loathed anything having to do with "heavy" or otherwise abrasive sounds. This friend, who was afraid to approach a mailbox because he thought they were government spying devices, had a somewhat different take. First he played for me the Sex Pistols, a group that I had never heard of. I thought it sounded like two wolverines tied up inside a burlap sack being smashed against large rocks. I hated it. (of course, later on I would end up loving the thing for exactly the reason I just noted) Undeterred, and dare I say a little emboldened by offending my sensibilities so thoroughly, he got out a worn copy of the Velvet Underground's second album, "White Light/White Heat" and slapped it on the turntable. (hey, I said it was a long time ago) I have never been the same ever since.
The opening title track to me sounded like an old Jerry Lee Lewis song being ripped to shreds by the aforementioned wolverines. Right away, I was, to put it mildly, skeptical. I believe my exact comments were "put this &%#@!!! away and let me play you side one of "Wish You Were Here" already" He didn't budge. Next came "The Gift" which was John Cale reciting a short story by Lou Reed over a stormy sea of guitars and Maureen Tucker's primal drumming. As the recitation was in one channel and the music in the opposite, I could at least focus on the words, which were surreal enough to soothe my little hippie brain. The next track, "Lady Godiva's Operation," got me hooked even more. "This sounds like "I Am The Walrus!" I declared, "or even something from the first Floyd album!" There was something far darker and sinister to this song, though. "Here She Comes Now" confused me even more. A soft melodic love song with sweetly strummed guitars, it didn't sound like the same group that was thrashing ole Jerry Lee. "Just wait 'til side two" my friend snickered.
"I Heard Her Call My Name" is the nastiest barroom brawl of a song I had ever heard, and even today it has few equals. Lou sounds like he's having an ugly physical confrontatiion with his guitar; the instrument is alive and boy is it not happy. Even the sainted Jimi Hendrix would be scared. It was anathema to me, yet it maintained an almost atavistic hold on my senses. At this point I couldn't shut off the record if I tried. Also, it's not wise to alarm a manic schizophrenic. Anyway, then comes "Sister Ray." If you've ever uttered the cliche "over the top" and you haven't heard this song, you don't know what you're talking about, Pedro. Seventeen minutes and twenty-seven seconds of relentless primitivistic howling scree, a black hole of misery and degradation, heck, a mother-lovin' celebration of misery and degradation. The guitars sound like machines in a huge factory breaking down and headed for oblivion, but never getting there. John Cale's organ, which was practically all I noticed the first few times I heard it, is demented, distorted, monolithic and utterly obsessive. Tucker's drumming is the heartbeat of a transvestite shot up with so much smack that heshe would kill a cop after a round of, um, oral delights, which of course are what the lyrics describe. In an uncharacteristic display of decorum that actually adds to the pervisity, Reed uses the phrase "suckin' on my ding-dong" instead of a more NC-17 wording! Then, after at least one false ending, perhaps deciding that after a long day of metaphorically splitting minds open, they just, well, stop. Just like that. No grand Wagnerian Ragnarok gestures, just goodbye and don't forget to turn off the lights on your way out, thanks.
I sat there, glassy eyed and slackjawed for a full minute afterward. Then I slowly turned my head to my friend, who was grinning maniacally, and I said, "that was the worst piece of garbage I have ever heard! I'm sick to my stomach!" Part of me still wanted to hear some Floyd, but I just couldn't. I was seething. I was violated.
Naturally, the next week I went out and bought the album and listened to it so many times that if sweat could make a sound, it would sound like "Sister Ray."
White Light White Heat Poster
If the Velvet Underground's debut record was a shot at the conventions of rock music then White Light/White Heat, released later that same year (1967), was a full on nuclear blast. The Velvet Underground & Nico was a gentle slab of folk-rock compared to this. From the amphetamine fueled opening of the title track to the the 17 minute assault that is Sister Ray White Light/White Heat hardly lets up for a second, with the haunting Here She Comes Now being the album's only mellow moment. One of the most difficult, challenging, and ultimately beautiful pop records of all time, considered by many to be the Velvets' greatest record. Reissued on deluxe 180 gram vinyl.Nothing in their debut could really have prepared fans for the sonic assault the Velvets unleashed in White Light/White Heat. Freed from Andy Warhol's patronage (and Nico's vocals), Lou Reed and company strip production values to a minimum and turn out a primitive rock & roll masterpiece: everything on this record sounds distorted and abrasive. Depending on how you feel about these sorts of things, this makes it either their best or their worst record. Of course, underneath it all are some of Reed's greatest songs, from the title track to the wistful "Here She Comes Now." It all culminates on side 2 with the raucously joyous "I Heard Her Call My Name" ("And then my mind split open," Reed sings, and his guitar lets you know just about how that would feel) and the epic "Sister Ray"--10 minutes of transcendent, pounding fuzz as Reed searches for his "mainline." --Percy Keegan
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