#293 - The Velvet Underground - White Light/White Heat (1968)

MUSIC HISTORY COMPILED BY ADAM BERNARD:

BACKGROUND – THE VELVET UNDERGROUND

The Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City. First active from 1964 to 1973, its best-known members were Lou Reed and John Cale. Although experiencing little commercial success while together, the band is often cited by many critics as one of the most important and influential groups of the 1960s. In a 1982 interview, famed producer Brian Eno made the often repeated statement that while the first Velvet Underground album may have sold only 30,000 copies in its early years, “everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band.”

Lou Reed was born in Brooklyn, and grew up in New Jersey. He was regularly targeted by bullies and developed a variety of phobias and anxieties. At the age of 16 he started to experiment with drugs. Hoping to deal with his problems, Reed's parents followed the advice of a psychiatrist and submitted him to electroconvulsive therapy; many years later, he would write about the traumatic effects of the treatments in his song "Kill Your Sons." He found solace in music, formed a band called The Jades, and had his first single at 16. He then took a job at Pickwick Records and wrote and recorded songs to help fill out albums on the label. It was there that he met musician John Cale (bass). He recruited a college friend, Sterling Morrison to play guitar, and then later on brought in Maureen Tucker to play drums in a new band called. Originally, the group performed under a number of names before settling on The Velvet Underground in 1965. Pop artist Andy Warhol became their manager in 1966, and they served as the house band at Warhol's art collective known as "the Factory" and Warhol's traveling multimedia show, the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, from 1966 to 1967. After the disappointing sales of the Velvet Underground's first album, The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967), their relationship with Andy Warhol deteriorated. They toured throughout most of 1967, and many of their live performances featured noisy improvisations that became key elements on White Light/White Heat. The band fired Warhol, parted ways with Nico (which she would describe as being fired), and recorded their second album with Tom Wilson credited as producer.

After the band released their third, self-titled album in 1969, they released Loaded in 1970, but that was the final one with Reed. Disillusioned with the lack of progress the band was making, Reed decided to quit the band during the last week of a residency they had in August 1970. Reed, of course went on to a successful solo career, releasing 22 non-VU albums. 

The Velvet Underground was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 by Patti Smith. 

ALBUM BACKGROUND – WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT

The Velvet Underground’s second studio album, White Light/White Heat, is undoubtedly one of the noisiest, most experimental, and most controversial albums of the 1960’s. Said Lou Reed of the album, “No one listened to it, but there it is forever – the quintessence of articulated punk. And no one goes near it.” It was the lowest selling studio album released by the VU in the USA, peaking at #199 on the Billboard Top LP Charts. Regardless of its lack of commercial success, the “anti-beauty” album is a true cult-favorite and one of the most important and forward thinking albums of its time. 

The world of pop music was hardly ready for The Velvet Underground's first album when it appeared in the spring of 1967, but while The Velvet Underground and Nico sounded like an open challenge to conventional notions of what rock music could sound like (or what it could discuss), 1968's White Light/White Heat was a no-holds-barred frontal assault on cultural and aesthetic propriety.  White Light/White Heat was the purest and rawest document of the key Velvets lineup of Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Maureen Tucker, capturing the group at their toughest and most abrasive. While side one was a good bit darker in tone than the Velvets' first album, side two was where they truly threw down the gauntlet with the manic, free-jazz implosion of "I Heard Her Call My Name", and the epic noise jam "Sister Ray," 17 minutes of sex, drugs, violence, and other non-wholesome fun. White Light/White Heat is easily the least accessible of The Velvet Underground's studio albums. Initially, the band had a high ego after its release, but were nevertheless disappointed by its lack of promotion from MGM. Like the band's debut, it was banned on radio, and was a commercial disappointment. Rolling Stone refused to review the record due to the subject matter.

White Light/White Heat was released on January 30, 1968, and was the band's last studio recording with multi-instrumentalist and founding member John Cale. Recorded after Reed fired Andy Warhol, who had produced their debut album The Velvet Underground & Nico  White Light/White Heat was recorded quickly and modeled after the band's live sound and techniques of improvisation, since they often played loud with new equipment from an endorsement deal with Vox. However, the final product was compressed and distorted-–most members were dissatisfied with the final product. The distortion level became a prototype for punk rock and noise rock. Ultimately, White Light/White Heat had a hugely significant impact on early forms of punk rock

Decades after its release, John Cale described White Light/White Heat as "a very rabid record. The first one had some gentility, some beauty. The second one was consciously anti-beauty." Sterling Morrison, the lead guitarist, said: "We were all pulling in the same direction. We may have been dragging each other off a cliff, but we were all definitely going in the same direction." Reed later boasted that "no group in the world can touch what we did" on the album