After The Velvet Underground cut three albums for the jazz-oriented Verve label that earned them lots of notoriety but negligible sales, the group signed with industry powerhouse Atlantic Records in 1970.
Label head Ahmet Ertegun supposedly asked Lou Reed to avoid sex and drugs in his songs, and instead focus on making an album "loaded with hits." Loaded was the result. It was the group's swan song, with Reed leaving the group shortly before its release. With John Cale long gone from the band, Doug Yule highly prominent (he sings lead on four of the ten tracks), and Maureen Tucker absent on maternity leave, this is hardly a purist's Velvet Underground album. Still, AllMusic gives the album 5 Stars and Pitchfork calls it a "perfect rock 'n' roll record — 40 minutes long, five songs to a side, and not a single wasted note."
Loaded is the sort of proper album that feels like a greatest hits collection, with each track thoroughly inhabiting and mastering a dominant rock archetype. Although the songs "Sweet Jane" and "Rock & Roll" distinguished the band as a "seminal proto-punk" act, "The trifecta of 'Who Loves the Sun,' 'Sweet Jane' and 'Rock & Roll' is among the best three-song openings on any rock and roll record," wrote Paste contributor Jeff Gonick.
Analogue Productions has given Loaded the deserving full reissue treatment: Pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Quality Record Pressings, and housed in a tip-on old style gatefold double pocket jacket by Stoughton Printing.
Tracklist:
Side One:
Who Loves the Sun
Sweet Jane
Rock & Roll
Side Two:
Cool It Down
New Age
Side Three:
Head Held High
Lonesome Cowboy Bill
I Found a Reason
Side Four:
Train Round the Bend
Oh! Sweet Nuthin'
Recording information:
Title: Loaded
Artist: Velvet Underground
Genre: Pop-Rock
Media: 2x 180g LP Vinyl Stereo 45rpm, Limited, . Mastered from Original Master Tape. High Quality Vinyl. Atlantic Audiophile Series. The 75th Anniversary of Atlantic Records.
Label: Analogue Productions
Cat#: APA-034-45
Released: 1.9.2024 in US
Original release: 1970 by Cotillion SD 9034
EAN: 0753088753473
Discogs rel.#: 31697003
