36th... Loaded with hits

Loaded. Four and a half.

When thinking of Lou Reed, it is important to remember that his musical apprenticeship did not come, as John Cale's did, at the foot of avant-garde activists, but in working as a pop songwriter in the great American tradition of writing songs for other people. That is the key to this album, the strangest chapter in Velvet Underground history.

In 1970, Lou Reed was getting justifiably sick of releasing albums to be ignored and touring ever summer to little acclaim. Loaded was an attempt to make an album so friendly and direct that it would have to be a success.

If the world was a fair place, Loaded would have topped the charts, Rock and Roll would have been on the radio and all their earlier works would have been re-released and newly evaluated. Of course, if the world was fair, The Zombies would never have broken up, Katell Keineg would be routinely mentioned alongside Merchant, Amos, Bjork and Harvey and Nick Drake would have gotten some recognition in his lifetime, but those are other stories.

The Velvet Underground at this point consisted of Reed, Morrison, Yule and a bunch of session drummers. They had indeed lost ANOTHER member; Maureen Tucker was absent from proceedings due to pregnancy and doing Loaded without her was in some ways the first mistake - on the other hand, the innocuous drum techniques used instead helped lend the album its distinctly commercial sound. That sound is the reason why beginners ought not to start their V.U. foray here - the impression would be completely at odds with their reputation.

I would recommend getting the "Fully Loaded" edition, by the way (if anyone buys CDs anymore), just on the strength of the accompanying booklet which tells you everything you need to know better than I can.

For instance: "On the original Dutch issue of Loaded, the pink smoke was inexplicably changed to green. Maybe that made all the difference. According to Sterling Morrison, Loaded received an Edison award in Holland for the best rock album of 1971...In America, Loaded never even charted on Billboard."

By the time Loaded came out, the Velvet Underground were finished, Max's Kansas City had come and gone and the band had nothing more to say.

Keep in mind that each song is a straight homage to a different kind of musical style. Who Loves the Sun is a straight slice of Beach Boys/Beatles pop, sung sweetly by Doug Yule, and what makes it so astonishing is that, while you may have thought Lou would give it a twist of sarcasm to wink/nudge the audience, it is instead a perfect homage, albeit with a cool musical non-sequiter when it starts getting a mite predictable...

One burst of overlapping psychedelic guitars later, Sweet Jane starts up, a lovable mess of a rock song. Reasons include the riff, obviously, and the terrible harmonies, not to mention the "heavenly wine and roses" interlude. But chiefly, I would say its appeal is the good cheer of it. It's positive. Jack and Jane are the usual brand of weirdos, but hell, they've got steady jobs, they're in love and they're happy. Even the narrator seems uncharacteristically content: "me I'm in a rock and roll band."

Rock and Roll continues the infectious vein, being a toe-tapper with cool keyboard interludes. The lyric takes on the classic story of the kid liberated from banality by the sounds of popular music; Lou dredged this one up from his own experience and the result is just plain fun...and you get to hear more of Lou's great higher register.

Cool it Down is a daft, country-fied little ditty which manages to marry a corny lyric to a lovely melodic structure. Despite the absence of Maureen, not to mention the friction among the leftovers, the band still cooks. It's a pleasure to listen to.

New Age begins strongly reminiscent of some of Jefferson Airplane's spare, psychedelic ballads while lyrically more along the lines of Sunset Boulevard. Doug Yule's fragile singing reminds me of Space Oddity era Bowie. There's a romantic splendour to the track and it never puts a foot wrong. It's the highlight of Loaded.

Head Held High tips over into a pastiche of heavy rock, and is one of the lesser moments just for that. Mind, it is pretty funny the first time through, but Lou's voice grates and the lyric has no merit.

I'm not sure what to make of Lonesome Cowboy Bill; as the title implies, it's a collection of country cliches. It's also repetitive to a fault - Yule's slur is just plain weird. A joke of some kind.

Things slow down for the doo-wop number. I Found a Reason manages the impossible - it is both a hammy, straight faced spoof and a lilting, bittersweet ballad. There is real pathos and beauty in the construction, yet there's also Lou's monologue... Whatever you want to make of it, it is undeniably both beautiful and silly.

Train Round the Bend makes a hilarious attack on Neil Young's ideology, if you want to look at it that way (I do; his star was on the rise back then). It's got a hard edged blues vibe but it doesn't tend to linger, so I'll come right out and say side two is weaker than side one. It's still fun, though.

The coda is seven and a half minutes, but no avant-garde excursion. Oh! Sweet Nuthin' is a gentle homage to country rock and a moving look at the unfortunates at the bottom of society. Musically, it is sung by Yule and builds to a quiet frenzy of guitar and drums before the end. Beautiful, entirely different to anything else the band had done and if you listened to the records in order as I just did, it makes a fitting end not only to Loaded, but to the overarching story.

My favorite Velvet Underground is still their debut, though if not for The Murder Mystery, their eponymous CD may have won. That leaves Loaded to come in a pleasant third. It may well stand as the Velvet Underground album you give to people who say they don't like the group.