White Light / White Heat (45th Anniversary Remaster) The Velvet Underground & Nico

• 1White Light/White Heat02:48
• 2The Gift08:20
• 3Lady Godiva's Operation04:57
• 4Here She Comes Now02:05
• 5I Heard Her Call My Name04:38
• 6Sister Ray17:32
• Total Runtime40:20

Info for White Light / White Heat (45th Anniversary Remaster)

The Velvet Underground’s second album offers none of the variety of their debut, but instead heads straight for the jugular. This is one loud, tough album. It begins with the speed-freak anthem of a title track, allows for a spoken word piece, “The Gift,” backed by tumultuous rhythms from drummer Maureen Tucker, twists into a bizarre stereophonic piece of sonic pastiche, “Lady Godiva’s Operation” — featuring the album’s most alluring melody — and then pummels further with the hypnotic, near fairytale-like, lo-fi garage rocker “Here She Comes Now.” And that is only side one, the milder of the two sides. Side two consists of only two songs and both are flame-throwers: “I Heard Her Call My Name” is a quick burst at four and a half minutes. It seems to begin already in progress as the lead guitar twists in bludgeoning fuzz and discordant solos while the drums trample anything in sight. But it’s only a warm-up for “Sister Ray,” the eighteen-minute jam de force that pits John Cale’s overloaded organ against the crazily distorted guitars and an X-Rated tale from the pen of Lou Reed. An album that inspired a thousand punks and counting.

„Nothing in their debut could really have prepared fans for the sonic assault the Velvets unleashed in White Light/White Heat. Freed from Andy Warhol's patronage (and Nico's vocals), Lou Reed and company strip production values to a minimum and turn out a primitive rock & roll masterpiece: Everything on this record sounds distorted and abrasive. Depending on how you feel about these sorts of things, this makes it either their best or their worst record. Of course, underneath it all are some of Reed's greatest songs, from the title track to the wistful 'Here She Comes Now'. It all culminates on side two with the raucously joyous 'I Heard Her Call My Name' ('And then my mind split open,' Reed sings and his guitar lets you know just about how that would feel) and the epic 'Sister Ray'--10 minutes of transcendent, pounding fuzz as Reed searches for his 'mainline.' (Percy Keegan)

Maureen Tucker, drum, percussion
Sterling Morrison, vocals, guitar, bass
Lou Reed, vocals, guitar, piano
John Cale, vocals, viola, organ, bass

Produced by Tom Wilson

Digitally remastered

Originally released January 1968 Verve Records.

The Velvet Underground
were an avant-garde New York City band whose unconventional and screeching sounds paved and shaped the roads of “underground” Rock and Roll. Beginning in small clubs and bars around NYC, the band originally enjoyed a cult like following of dedicated fans, who rejoiced in a sound that, at the time, was deemed “undanceable” and ludicrous by mainstream media. Eventually, the band emerged from the cracks and shadows of Greenwich Village to form a union with the infamous Andy Warhol, whose notoriety catapulted the group of experimentalists to new and unseen heights. As they linked up to travel the Unites States, they overwhelmed audiences everywhere with a surreal concoction of images, films, lighting effects, and music, known as The Exploding Plastic Inevitable tour. Warhol also introduced the band to the young Nico, creating a partnership that went on to produce the coveted “The Velvet Underground & Nico” album, which is considered one of the most influential albums of all time. Fifty years later and The Velvet Underground’s works continue to inject their nonconformist and unique sounds into the ears of indie kids around the globe. With not only a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction under their belt but also four albums in the Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of all Time, The Velvet Underground still influences a younger generation of artists, who one can only hope will uphold the underground’s tradition of challenging and piercing the conventional boundaries of not only music, but creativity as a whole.

This album contains no booklet.