By the time of Loaded, the fourth album and final chapter in the history of America’s greatest rock ’n’ roll band, the Velvet Underground had finally returned to a triumphant residency back home in New York City. They felt they delivered an album loaded with hits, hence the title.
The band’s debut album successfully blended Lou Reed’s East Coast urban-realist poetry with rock ’n ’ roll. The follow-up, White Light/White Heat, pushed sonic boundaries with the landmark “Sister Ray” (and signaled the exit of co-leader John Cale). The landscape changed again for their third album, with the focus on songs, while retaining guitar breaks that leaned toward free jazz.
Loaded was a horse of a different color. Cale’s replacement, Doug Yule, sang with a sense of innocence, which, when coupled with Reed’s lyrics, was a stroke of brilliance. Taken on its own terms Loaded is an accessible album, one built on solid songs (“Sweet Jane” and “Rock & Roll” would become staples of early FM radio formats) as well as rave-ups (“Train Round the Bend” and “Head Held High”). The album demonstrated that the band’s time on the road paid off with neat studio sessions. Unfortunately the band’s manager wanted control and Reed quit his own group not long after.
For many listeners, Loaded was the entry point for the Velvets. By now you’d think every sneeze and whisper has been packaged and released—this edition includes demos as well as a re-mastered Live at Max’s Kansas City, Reed’s final gig with the band until the Velvets reformed in 1992 for a European victory lap.
But this is a band with no ordinary archive and the Velvets’ stature has grown over the years. Also included is an 11-song set recorded in 1970, live at the Second Fret in Philadelphia with Yule on bass and drums (drummer Moe Tucker’s pregnancy gave her a good excuse to miss some gigs).
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As countless bootlegs have shown, the Velvets were fearless live—reinterpreting their songs as the evening saw fit. “Cool it Down” works out a guitar part very different from what Sterling Morrison plays on Loaded. The band’s versatility and endless imagination can be compared to great jazz groups reinventing tunes each evening of a residency. On this night it could be a different song, one that nails a riff that might be the jumping-off point for a few of the better Krautrock bands. Likewise, “Train Round the Bend” takes a warped, hypnotic tremolo and swathes it around a song. It is like cough medicine for your ears and the blueprint for such children of the Velvets’ as Spaceman 3 and Spiritualized.
