Monday, January 14, 2008

Velvet Underground / "The Very Best of the Velvet Underground"

In my opinion, the five most important artists in the history of pop music are The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Velvet Underground, Elvis Presley, and Jimi Hendrix, in that order. Of the five, I think only Elvis can have his career summed up within the context of a greatest hits compilation. He was never really an album artist as much as a singles artist. The others all are much better explored by hearing the entirety of their best albums. In the case of the VU, that would be their first three LPs: "The Velvet Underground and Nico", "White Light / White Heat", and "The Velvet Underground". Those three albums are extremely different, in sound, lyrical content, and experimentation. That this collection was even issued to begin with is its first mistake. (In addition, there are already numerous greatest hits albums for the band prior to this collection's 2006 release.)

While the quality of the sixteen tracks is without debate, as everything released by this band is among the finest work in American rock history, the song selection does little justice to the band's albums. Essential works from each album, which defined the albums themselves, is omitted. While omitting anything from their debut would be a tall task in creating this album, one has to think there would be a place for "Run Run Run" and "There She Goes" as they are among the band's most famous work.

The most obvious omission from "White Light / White Heat" (and the most essential track missing) is that album's closing track "Sister Ray", which was the heart of that album in both length and quality. The compilation does a decent job handling the tracks from the band's more subdued self-titled third release, though an appearance of either "Candy Says" or the album's most ambitious track, "The Murder Mystery", would seem appropriate.

Somehow it manages to miss "Sweet Jane" and "Rock and Roll" from "Loaded", even though they were the band's biggest hits, and does a horrible job handling the album overall. Now when I look back, some of these mistakes were either unavoidable or else understandable. Every track from their debut (with the possible exception of "The Black Angel's Death Song") is absolutely essential in understanding and embracing the band. "Sister Ray", with a running time of over twenty minutes, would take up far too much time on a best of album, especially with as much great material as the VU had. Similarly, while "The Gift" is an outstanding track and one of the ban'd most interesting songs ever released, it doesn't lend itself to a collection like this. The same problem with "The Velvet Underground" is that it is so different than anything else in their catalogue, because of the band's quieter sound resulting from John Cale's departure prior to its recording. While the omissions from "Loaded" are unforgiveable, the album's importance as a whole pales in comparison to their previous releases. At least they had the sense to not include any tracks from "Squeeze", which was a VU album in name only, with Doug Yule (the band's least important member in the creative process throughout their prime years) the only remaining member.

This all begs the question, why release the disc? The answer is that their is not a reasonable answer for this, except to try and make money off the band's recognition. No fan of the band would step near it, only those who have heard them mentioned and were perhaps curious, or else listeners who only want to try and gain a vague understanding of the band to pose as fans. This is a document for posers and non-fans only. If you want to understand the band, go online and either purchase or download their three initial albums. All of them are available online for under $10. The content that is on the disc is 10.0 material, make no mistake about it. However, the crafting of the disc and its existence at all warrant a dubious 0.0. Which leaves me with a...

Rating: 5.0

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