Main menu
Fretplay home Submit tabs

The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground tabs The Velvet Underground discography

Channels
Guitar channel Bass channel Guitar videos Reviews

Message Forum
Guitar forum Bass forum Bands and artists Promote your band Recent discussions All categories

Fretplay.com

The Velvet Underground guitar tabs

CD reviews

Gold

The Velvet Underground - Gold Audio CD

A fair review of the The Velvet Underground "Gold" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all The Velvet Underground reviews here, or go back to the The Velvet Underground tabs.

Band: The Velvet Underground
Title: Gold
Rating:

Release Date: 2005-06-14
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: I'm Waiting for the Man 2: Femme Fatale 3: Venus in Furs 4: Run Run Run 5: All Tomorrow's Parties 6: Heroin 7: There She Goes Again 8: I'll Be Your Mirror 9: Sunday Morning 10: Chelsea Girls - Nico 11: It Was a Pleasure Then - Nico 12: White Light/White Heat 13: I Heard Her Call My Name 14: Sister Ray 15: Temptation Inside Your Heart 16: Stephanie Says 17: Hey Mr. Rain [Version One] 18: Candy Says 19: What Goes On 20: Some Kinda Love 21: Pale Blue Eyes 22: Beginning to See the Light 23: Foggy Notion 24: I Can't Stand It 25: One of These Days 26: Lisa Says 27: New Age [Live] 28: Rock and Roll [Live] 29: Ocean [Live] 30: Sweet Jane [Live]

All you may need...
This is truly a well put together overview of basically all the Velvet's albums minus Loaded. At least it is all I need since I own Loaded. Practically all of the first album is included in this 2 & 1/2 hour compilation. The 2 discs also include tracks from Nico's solo disc, tracks from VU & live tracks of Loaded's best tracks. Great booklet, photos, essays, etc. Also it is a great value. I guess all that hype is true. Although it took me a while to come around, I'm beginning to see the light. .

The original alternative.
It's obviously twice the set the single disc collections are. I'm gonna say that, unless VU is your favorite band of all time, this collection will please most anybody. It sounds great, it's 30 tracks, and has a nice booklet within. Every song they had that was anything close to a hit is here, and then some. Plus a few live tracks, a couple from Nico alone, and hey, as a casual fan I find no flaw here. The Velvet Underground is a band I can listen to in the midst of any mood. They're a rockin', alternative, classic, mellow band. You know what I mean. Thanks Lou Reed, thanks Nico, thanks VU. .

Universal's "Gold" series shines...

The "Loaded" cuts are left off due to being on Warners (although the 1 CD greatest "hits" had "R&R" and "Sweet Jane" and "Peel Slowly" had all of the albums, this is more about the Verve era). Sony had been putting out the "Essentials" for a while, and I guess Universal realized that people wanted something that had the hits and deep cuts. However, this collection in my humble opinion is worth it because it has the live cuts from "1969" (which wasn't part of the box set or the hits pack) containing the slower, loose version of "Sweet Jane" and a couple of the Nico cuts from "Chelsea Girl" (and "VU"/"Another View")that "Loaded" isn't really missed that much, it just makes the VU collection somewhat incomplete. . . but then again there are songs from Verve that were left off.

I like the collections Universal and Sony are putting out in their respective "Gold" and "Essentials" series. It's not really a "greatest hits" series or the quick buck as much as recognizing a great band that is in Universal's catalog and assembling a group of songs that are the hits as well as fan favorites. For most great bands, you need 2 CDs to cover the territory needed.

This is a great intro into the Velvets before picking up the CDs, or those that want some Velvets for the road trip (although this is disturbing stuff to listen to at 3AM on a dark road). Most diehards will download their own "best of". Lou Reed's "NYC Man" is recommended for the wider overview.

.

Send your check or money order to K-tel now - or call our 800 number!!!
The garishly ugly cover photo here really seals the deal. Could somebody _please_ explain to me how the he11 "Temptation Inside Your Heart", an amusing but eminently forgettable song, winds up on here instead of "I'm Sticking With You"? Or how about the live version of "Guess I'm Falling in Love", from the boxed set - isn't it time the general public got to hear that gem? And, why, in an era where the majors are cross-licensing like never before in a desperate attempt to save their collective hides, *WHY* couldn't they have ponied up the dough for the album versions of "Sweet Jane" and "Rock and Roll"?

(long silence)

Guess that's what happens when you treat bands and their music like disposable product, to be folded up and stuffed into identical packages.

It's a shame, because this group could use a decent compilation, and, by and large, the choices here aren't bad, save for the rather gigantic errors mentioned above.

Disk 1 neatly solves the problem of what to include from the classic "banana" debut by including everything, save for what are probably the two most, um, "challenging" songs in the group's catalog. _White Light/White Heat_ is an album that should be heard in its entirety, but for purposes of compilation, the three tracks here do fine.

Disc 2 is where the trouble is. The "grey album" is neatly condensed for casual listening, and six of the seven "V. U. " tracks included clearly do belong, but "Temptation. . . " is one more dog than this set can afford, given the major letdown that lies at the end of the disc (the absence of the _Loaded_ material).

Well, anyway, it's nice to see the good ol' V. U. included in the same series as the Jackson 5 and Olivia Newton-John, so that the world can be reminded what a great pop singles act they were. Cheerio!

p. s. - I think if you order three of these, you get a free salad shooter
.

good, but flawed introduction
That's a strength and a weakness in my eyes. The Velvets haven't had the best of luck being compiled. There albums are very diverse, their four main albums all having a different focus on their sound. Though, it's this very diversity that makes things potentially difficult for compilations.

Here, the dreamy haze of their first album is represented almost in full, which is to be expected, I guess, since it routinely ranks high in 'greatest albums polls. ' And with good reason, since it remains one of the most influential rock albums. The noizy, distortion / dissonance driven White Light/White Heat is also represented by most of it's tracks, including the mighty, 16-minute 'Sister Ray'

The second disc then, starts off with a few 'extra tracks' recorded for an uncompleted album. This disc definetly shows the velvets in a transitional period, instilling their previous, more experimental work with more accessable song styles. Their third album is well represented, as well. It's decidedly low-key after the furious assault of "White Light/Heat", and was undoubtedly quite shocking to long-term follwers of the band when it was released. How much of a difference could there be, really?

After this is when the compilation begins to fall apart, sadly. After their third album, the band switched record labels and recorded the seminal "Loaded" album. While not as experimental as the first two albums, it features the bands best performance as a single, rock n' roll unit, despite the missing founding drummer, Maureen Tucker. This compilation, like many others, can't (or won't) buy the rights to feature songs recorded on another label, and are represented by unrepresentative live versions of several songs. Sad, really. The originals work much better.

And where are the Maureen Tucker songs? Any introduction to the velvets should feature "I'm sticking with you" or at the very least, "Afterhours" from their third album. Aside from being a duo of great songs, they provide a great contrast to the sand-and-glue vocals of nico, lou reed, and john cale, and shouldn't be ignored.

So, a good introduction, but the box set, "Peel Slowly and See" is the best complete velvet package you can get. It features all four albums, plus TONS of bonus stuff.

For an introduction though, it's a bit expensive, so GOLD, paired with LOADED would be perfect.

smooches.

You can see a complete list of all The Velvet Underground discography, or go back to the The Velvet Underground tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.