Loaded - The Velvet Undergound

 

Ironically enough, if any band apart from The Velvet Underground had released ‘Loaded’, there is a chance that it may be hailed as one of the greatest rock n roll albums of all the time. However, with it not being considered as "cool" as their other albums, Moe Tucker not on drums and Lou Reed handing so much of the vocal duties over to Doug Yule its easy to see why history has judged it to be less than the equal of the bands first three records.
What ‘Loaded’ does have in its favour is songs, great songs, pop songs when pop was good and it shouldn’t matter if a bunch of monkeys recorded this record, the quality and breadth of the tracks on offer stands to this day. As the band stated at the time, they were continuously being asked by the record label “Where are the hits?”, so they made an album full of hits, “loaded with hits.”

Starting with the sprightly yet melancholic ‘Who Loves The Sun?’ you sense that the meandering feedback and squalor of ‘White Light, White Heat’ and the weary resignation of ‘The Velvet Underground’ have been discarded for a more commercial sheen as the track’s backing vocals soar and harry through.
Two of Lou Reeds greatest ever songs are found on ‘Loaded’ with ‘Sweet Jane’ and ‘Rock And Roll’ with both of them standing as classics to the modern day. Part of Reeds discomfort with Loaded may lie in the production job of ‘Sweet Jane’ but the remastered 2-cd edition, restores it to its complete and extended glory. With the benefit of hindsight its insane to consider that the "heavenly wine and roses" section could have been axed from the original production but the Rhino 2 disc version rectifies all these problems and adds many extra tracks recorded around the same time period.

‘New Age’ with its slow, pulsating intro and musing lyrics stands as the pivotal centre-point of the album, and must stand as one of the most under-rated gems in the Velvets output. Criticism is again aimed at Yules slow, unsure delivery but the delivery suits the mood of the track, a tired lament at lost glories that suddenly spirals upwards with the “Something’s gotten hold of me and I don’t know what” line and climaxes with the anthemic and uplifting chorus.  ‘New Age’ featured on the Live 1969 album with vastly altered lyrics and that version fails to hold a candle to the "Loaded" track.

From here on in the album freewheels to the end and on initial listens, the latter half pales in comparison with the opening tracks. Given the quality of the first half this is no great shame and over time, the pop sensibilities of "Lonesome Cowboy Bill" have a joyous romp to them that are a million miles removed from the glacial beauty of the Nico sang songs from their debut. "I Found A Reason" contains some lyrics that are so obvious and brilliant that surely they've been nicked from somewhere before and "Oh Sweet Nuthin" is a superb coda, a lazy track that shuffles along with a world weary gaze and tremendous one-note guitar soloing.
Its not the album that the Velvets are known for, and neither it should be, without Moe Tucker propelling the songs on there is an evident change in emotion and of course, by this time Cale was long out of the picture. For all that though, as a collection of songs its hard to argue with the album as a whole. For a document of a shambolic and confusing time for the individuals concerned, its hoped that all concerned could take a lot of pride from "Loaded", everyone else should just be glad that it was made in the first place.