Whenever I drop the needle on this record, I’m greeted by “Who Loves the Sun”, and the mental image of the Velvet Underground banging out this pretty little ditty while Lou Reed just stands on stage, scowling at the audience and flipping the bird. It’s the album I would expect Reed to write when pressed by the record label to bring the hits, which is what they did. He had the ability to marry the warm sensibility of pop music - the hooks, the undeniable beat - with an undercurrent of seediness, the vague, foul odor of rock and roll. Why? Because Lou Reed was one of the finest rock songwriters of his generation. They could have called it The Velvet Underground Sells Out. But Loaded excels where all those other albums failed - it brings the hits. It isn’t the groundbreaking, Warholian debut with Nico, it isn’t the well-regarded self-titled change of pace, it isn’t even the dirty fuzz box of White Light/White Heat. Of all the Velvet Underground records, I like Loaded the most. Loaded currently sits at #242 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list, right between the Zombies' Odessey and Oracle (#243) and Massive Attack's Blue Lines (#241).Mendelsohn: I’m not going to lie, Klinger. The record did, ironically enough, eventually deliver multiple "hits": two of the most enduring and radio-ready tracks in the group's entire catalog: perennials "Sweet Jane" and "Rock & Roll." Both tunes have been covered relentlessly by other artists, with Reed often citing the Cowboy Junkies' version of " Sweet Jane" as his favorite. Released on November 15, 1970, Loaded was yet another commercial underachiever, failing to chart on the Billboard 200. We then wound up with Loaded being recorded with very FM oriented stuff like 'Who Loves The Sun,' 'Head Held High' and 'Sweet Jane.'" He convinced me to think more commercially and so we started out softly, like you can hear on The Matrix tapes. " Loaded was focused and commercial and the manager wanted to have more FM play. " Loaded was done in New York and we were all living separately," remembered Doug Yule, who replaced John Cale before the group's third LP, to Uncut in 2014. But what it really is is something else." It's still called a Velvet Underground record. The album was also made without the group's founding drummer, Moe Tucker, MIA due to her first pregnancy: " Loaded didn't have Maureen on it, and that's a lot of people's favorite Velvet Underground record, so we can't get too lost in the mystique of the Velvet Underground. You know, the manager has an apartment and the artist is sleeping on the floor by the fireplace like a sheepdog." Where the manager feels that he is more important than the artist, or is in competition with the artist. No, it was just a terrible thing with the manager. When asked if the remaining members finishing the album without him was the "final straw," Reed explained during a 2016 interview: "The final straw was long before that. The fragile state of the band finally collapsed towards the end of the Loaded recording sessions when Reed walked away from the band. Picked up by Atlantic subsidiary Cotillon, the VU set out to make a record "loaded" with hits, hence the title. The group's previous studio effort, the self-titled release from 1969, fared so poorly in terms of sales that it resulted in the outfit being dropped by its label, MGM Records. The Velvet Underground was falling apart when it came time for the band to make its fourth and final album to feature Lou Reed, Loaded.
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