White Light/White Heat the album

[Deleted]

I guess it's place in the canon is secure, but what do we really think?
I have to say it's more an album I admire than love.
So a missed opportunity? The Velvets at their most uncompromising? A bit of both?

The cover was a bit shit, no?

[osgood]

To be honest if I'd lose my copy, I don't think I'd notice.

[Crunchy Col]

The two short tracks are unbeatable. The rest....it depends on the day.

[Crunchy Col]

And the cover is perfect.

[bungo the mungo]

it's their second best. i need to be in the mood for it, but i really enjoy it when i am.

'the gift' has some excellent little guitar parts and it has their best song 'here she comes now'.

to be honest, i like all the songs on it but it just doesn't have 'that sound' they got on the debut.

[loveless]

I think its utter singularity (nothing like the first, nothing like the third) is one of its great virtues.

Love the cover.

I've had 30+ years to learn to love "Sister Ray" and it hasn't happened.

But...I'm wild about the rest ("WLWH" is a million dollar jam, and I suppose I love "The Gift" more than most..."I Heard..." is wonderful, "Here She Comes Now" is gorgeous, and "Lady Godiva's Operation" is a joy).

Is it their Da Capo?

[Crunchy Col]

I can't remember where I heard it (I've watched three VU documentaries over the last week) but although Mo is drumming on the title track, you can't actually hear her much - the rest of the band are drowning her out!

[loveless]

Oct 20, 2021 15:11:48 GMT Crunchy Col said:

I can't remember where I heard it (I've watched three VU documentaries over the last week) but although Mo is drumming on the title track, you can't actually hear her much - the rest of the band are drowning her out!

Yeah, even that is something special - that almost pathological dedication to "the big picture" (why I love garage, mono, etc.). The urgency and impact of the track - the things you CAN hear wouldn't sound like they do if not for Mo's drumming, but the point of the whole thing is not "Let's balance everyone" but more the fact that it sounds like too MUCH intense music getting squeezed out of a small speaker.

[Deleted]

Oct 20, 2021 15:05:37 GMT bungo the mungo said:

it's their second best. i need to be in the mood for it, but i really enjoy it when i am.

'the gift' has some excellent little guitar parts and it has their best song 'here she comes now'.

to be honest, i like all the songs on it but it just doesn't have 'that sound' they got on the debut.

I kind of feel the opposite. It has the sound but not the songs ( with the obvious exception of the two mentioned by John).

[Deleted]

Oct 20, 2021 15:11:39 GMT loveless said:

I think its utter singularity (nothing like the first, nothing like the third) is one of its great virtues.

Love the cover.

I've had 30+ years to learn to love "Sister Ray" and it hasn't happened.

But...I'm wild about the rest ("WLWH" is a million dollar jam, and I suppose I love "The Gift" more than most..."I Heard..." is wonderful, "Here She Comes Now" is gorgeous, and "Lady Godiva's Operation" is a joy).

Is it their Da Capo?

Surprised to hear you rate "The Gift" and "LGO" so highly. They're both ones I'd ditch.
Love Sister Ray, but it's length is a problem. It becomes too much of an endurance test.

[Crunchy Col]

It's really quite incredible that the variety of styles they exhibited over those four albums (to simplify/caricature: gothic doom rock, overdriven noisy guitar rock, gentle folk-influenced pop-rock, Beatles-y/Beach Boys-y sunshine pop) all went on to influence different strands of music greatly over the next several decades. And it could be that the possibilities of the second are the least 'explored'

[Sneelock]

I fuckin' love it. it's my favorite. it scratches an itch that I didn't know needed scratching. the combination of tuney & noisy is right up my alley. I LOVE "the gift" & I can't imagine the record without "sister ray". I'm the same way with "L.A. Blues" on the Stooges "funhouse" the other shoe hasn't dropped until the whole thing is done.

hearing that the sound of the album is born of indifference leads me to regard my own indifference as some sort of virtue.

how fucked up is that?

[Charlie O.]

I'm with loveless' take(s) to the word.

[Deleted]

I'm slightly surprised there's such a consensus on its greatness. For me it's quite flawed.

Okay, what makes Lady Godiva's Operation so great? I quite like its distorted riff, but its poorly sung, runs out of steam after about a minute and descends into just pissing about for the last couple of minutes. And there's over six minutes of it.

[Reactionary Rage]

I've always found it something of a chore. Some obvious highs (title, Here She Comes Now, I Heard..) but I cannot be arsed with all of Sister Ray and have rarely listened to it all the way through without getting bored. The Gift is something that would work better as a much shorter experimental piece but they are really pushing their luck with 8 bleeding minutes of it (and right after the the opening track too seems perverse!) and I much prefer something like Murder Mystery to this.

It feels like a real "fuck you world" album. I dunno if the failure of the debut and other struggles seemed to embolden their innate awkwardness but they seem to double down here and really go for it. Which is admirable in one way and very Lou/Cale but I prefer the third and Loaded to it (which I know to some might seem like a sacrilege but there you go)

Shame they couldn't have cut down Sister Ray and found a place for the ghostly Hey Mr Rain (one of my fave VU outtakes).