Loaded (Remastered) The Velvet Underground & Nico

• 1 Who Loves The Sun 02:46
• 2 Sweet Jane 04:06
• 3 Rock & Roll 04:43
• 4 Cool It Down 03:05
• 5 New Age 05:11
• 6 Head Held High 02:57
• 7 Lonesome Cowboy Bill 02:44
• 8 I Found A Reason 04:16
• 9 Train Round The Bend 03:21
• 10 Oh! Sweet Nuthin' 07:25
• 11 I'm Sticking With You 02:53
• 12 Ocean 05:45
• 13 I Love You 02:54
• 14 Ride Into The Sun 03:24
• Total Runtime 55:30

Info zu Loaded (Remastered)

„Loaded“ was a fitting end for the mighty Velvet Underground. Lou Reed had penned an album seemingly packed with hits, but by now, four LPs into the Velvets' career, only a sad few record buyers appreciated the band. Resignation permeates the album. Reed's voice is noticeably ragged, and bassist Doug Yule ended up recording many of the vocals for the final mix. Drummer Moe Tucker was pregnant, and Yule's brother Billy sat in on drums for most of the sessions. This was no longer the art rock Velvet Underground, but a far more accessible version, relying on Reed's songwriting over the band's overall musicality. Yet „Loaded“ is arguably VU's most immediately satisfying album. Less overtly experimental than any of their other releases, the record still overflows with hooks, churning grooves and Lou Reed's irresistibly unique pop sensibility. In addition to the certifiable rock classics 'Sweet Jane' and 'Rock & Roll' (which alone should elevate the album into the rock pantheon), there are shiny, ironic ditties ('Who Loves the Sun'), cool, folk-rocking groovers ('Cool It Down'), and beautiful, weary ballads ('Oh! Sweet Nuthin''). „Loaded“ shimmers and gleams for all of its finality. While the album closed the book on the Velvet Underground's life, it also solidified their significant niche in rock history.

„After The Velvet Underground cut three albums for the jazz-oriented Verve label that earned them lots of notoriety but negligible sales, the group signed with industry powerhouse Atlantic Records in 1970; label head Ahmet Ertegun supposedly asked Lou Reed to avoid sex and drugs in his songs, and instead focus on making an album 'loaded with hits.' Loaded was the result, and with appropriate irony it turned out to be the first VU album that made any noticeable impact on commercial radio -- and also their swan song, with Reed leaving the group shortly before its release. With John Cale long gone from the band, Doug Yule highly prominent (he sings lead on four of the ten tracks), and Maureen Tucker absent on maternity leave, this is hardly a purist's Velvet Underground album. But while Lou Reed always wrote great rock & roll songs with killer hooks, on Loaded his tunes were at last given a polished but intelligent production that made them sound like the hits they should have been, and there's no arguing that 'Sweet Jane' and 'Rock and Roll' are as joyously anthemic as anything he's ever recorded. And if this release generally maintains a tight focus on the sunny side of the VU's personality (or would that be Reed's personality?), 'New Age' and 'Oh! Sweet Nuthin'' prove he had hardly abandoned his contemplative side, and 'Train Around the Bend' is a subtle but revealing metaphor for his weariness with the music business. Sterling Morrison once said of Loaded, 'It showed that we could have, all along, made truly commercial sounding records,' but just as importantly, it proved they could do so without entirely abandoning their musical personality in the process. It's a pity that notion hadn't occurred to anyone a few years earlier.“ (Mark Deming, AMG)

Ranked #109 in Rolling Stone's '500 Greatest Albums Of All Time' - '[A] record that highlights the R&B/doo-wop roots and Sun Records crackle deep inside the Velvets' noir-guitar maelstrom...'

Lou Reed, vocals, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, piano
Doug Yule, bass, piano, keyboards, lead guitar, fuzz bass, drums, percussion, backing vocals, lead vocals
Sterling Morrison, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, possible backing vocals
Maureen Tucker, drums
Additional musicians:
Adrian Barber, drums on 'Who Loves the Sun' and 'Sweet Jane'
Tommy Castagnaro, drums on 'Cool It Down' and 'Head Held High'
Billy Yule, drums on 'Lonesome Cowboy Bill' and 'Oh! Sweet Nuthin''
John Cale, organ on 'Ocean' demo version

Recorded April–August 1970, Atlantic Recording Studios, New York City, United States
Engineered by Adrian Barber
Produced by Geoff Haslam, Shel Kagan, The Velvet Underground

Digitally remastered

The Velvet Underground
were an avant-garde New York City band whose unconventional and screeching sounds paved and shaped the roads of “underground” Rock and Roll. Beginning in small clubs and bars around NYC, the band originally enjoyed a cult like following of dedicated fans, who rejoiced in a sound that, at the time, was deemed “undanceable” and ludicrous by mainstream media. Eventually, the band emerged from the cracks and shadows of Greenwich Village to form a union with the infamous Andy Warhol, whose notoriety catapulted the group of experimentalists to new and unseen heights. As they linked up to travel the Unites States, they overwhelmed audiences everywhere with a surreal concoction of images, films, lighting effects, and music, known as The Exploding Plastic Inevitable tour. Warhol also introduced the band to the young Nico, creating a partnership that went on to produce the coveted “The Velvet Underground & Nico” album, which is considered one of the most influential albums of all time. Fifty years later and The Velvet Underground’s works continue to inject their nonconformist and unique sounds into the ears of indie kids around the globe. With not only a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction under their belt but also four albums in the Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of all Time, The Velvet Underground still influences a younger generation of artists, who one can only hope will uphold the underground’s tradition of challenging and piercing the conventional boundaries of not only music, but creativity as a whole.

Dieses Album enthält kein Booklet