New album worth a spin - 9/24/21
I have a feeling this one will be a bit of a stretch for the casual music fan but hear me, and it, out.
• I’ll Be Your Mirror: A Tribute to the Velvet Underground & Nico
Tribute albums are tough for me to warm up to. In all my years of listening, only two have ever cracked my permanent life playlist - Beat the Retreat: Songs by Richard Thompson and Return of the Grievous Angel: A Tribute to Gram Parsons. I’ve tried to put my finger on what makes those two work so gloriously when 99.9% of the others I’ve heard only make me desperately wish I was listening to the tributee instead. One reason, I’m sure, is that they’re tributes to an artist I love by performers I deeply admire, but even that combination isn’t a slam dunk. I’ve turned off compilations of blues musicians playing Rolling Stones songs more than a few times and thrown on Hot Rocks. There’s some kind of spark, some musical alchemy, that turns a collection of cover versions into an album that plays as a deeply satisfying listening experience in its own right. I don’t really understand the magic, and I don’t need to. I’m just really happy to add a third record to that list. I’ll Be Your Mirror is a song-by-song recreation of the Velvet’s first album, The Velvet Underground & Nico, in its original running order. If that sounds simple enough, it’s possible you haven’t spent a lot of time with that record.
Let’s take a quick look at context. VU&N came out in 1967, the year of the hippie explosion and the Summer of Love. The Rolling Stones were singing sweetly about a girl named Ruby Tuesday, Herman’s Hermits let us know that there was a kind of hush all over the world, Elvis was recording gospel hymns, and the Turtles hit the big time by reminding us that we were all happy together. The Beatles were a couple of months away from dropping Sgt. Pepper’s uber-friendly psychedelia on the world. In NYC, Lou Reed and John Cale were conspiring with Andy Warhol to create something….different.
Lou wrote a batch of songs about buying and using drugs, S&M and other types of non-traditional sex, and the oppressive, grimy noisiness of lower Manhattan. Warhol’s role as “producer” was to pay for the studio sessions and let the band do whatever the hell they wanted. He insisted they add Nico on a few tracks, whose singing style is best described as a Teutonic monotone. Andy created the now iconic peelable banana for the cover (the banana underneath is a disturbingly lurid pink) and put his own name on the front cover instead of the band’s. There’s nothing else like the final product, an album I love down to my DNA. It rocks, croons, scrapes, assaults, soothes, and confounds. As Blue Oyster Cult sang many years later, “this ain’t the Summer of Love.” It sold poorly, but critics mostly loved it, and it’s considered a classic of modern experimental rock today, an album that launched thousands of new bands. It shouldn’t work as the framework for a tribute album, and it’s an impressive testament to the passion and vision of all involved that I’ll Be Your Mirror captures that ol’ indefinable alchemy. It’ll never replace the astounding original, but it’ll get pulled out for a lot of spins from now on.
· “Sunday Morning” – Michael Stipe: REM’s reclusive singer comes out of retirement to sing the opening ballad, which I’ve always heard as an ode to wretched hangovers. He’s in especially fine voice and brings guitarist extraordinaire Bill Frisell along for the ride.
· “I’m Waiting for the Man” – Matt Berninger: The National’s singer takes an admirable stab at one of Lou’s best-known songs. The version here isn’t as jittery and paranoid as the original, it feels more streamlined, and the vocal adds a bit more swing.
· “Femme Fatale” – Sharon Van Etten: Ah, Sharon, how do I love thee? One of the really great voices in modern rock, worthy of stepping into Nico’s shoes on one of Lou’s loveliest ballads.
· “Venus in Furs” – Andrew Bird & Lucius: One of the original album’s most musically abrasive (and wonderful) songs. Violinist/vocalist Bird turns it into something that sounds like a warped, eastern-European folk song. It’s a song about sadomasochism, so nobody’s gonna make it “sweet,” but Bird’s haunting acoustic interpretation is a revelation.
· “Run Run Run” – Kurt Vile: If there’s a slight misstep on the album, it’s this one, but only in tone, not execution. Mr. Vile and his perfectly named band, the Vileators, slam this one out as a straightforward charger. The beauty of the original is the way Lou only implied that it’s a straightforward charging rock song. The way the VU held back from going all in creates an exquisite tension that’s missing here. But it’s still an undeniable rocker, and the band makes an enjoyable rough and ready job of it.
· “All Tomorrow’s Parties” – St. Vincent & Thomas Bartlett: A gutsy move, Annie Clark tosses out the song’s epic melody line and replaces it with amelodic piano and synths. Her vocals are electronically treated and mostly recited instead of sung. Nothing like Nico’s version, but a match for the daring experimentalism that defined the original album.
· “Heroin” – Thurston Moore feat: Bobby Gillespie: One of Lou’s most uncoverable songs, a description of shooting smack that comes at you in seven long minutes of alternating quiet and loud waves. Bobby Gillespie from Primal Scream sings it in an effective, odd, half-whisper, but it’s Thurston Moore’s squalling guitar playing that makes this version feel as unsettling as Lou’s.
· “There She Goes Again” – King Princess: The one song on the album where I had no idea who the artist was and had to look her up. I found out she’s from Brooklyn, 30 years younger than the album, and actually has a platinum selling single, “1950,” on her resume. Her rendition lacks some of the evil intent of the original, but it’s pretty cool and badass anyway.
· “I’ll Be Your Mirror” – Courtney Barnett: Just Courtney, her white t-shirt and left-handed Telecaster, one of the coolest images in modern rock. A gorgeous version of a gorgeous song. Another of Lou’s killer ballads.
· “The Black Angel’s Death Song” – Fontaines DC: The Irish post-punk band attacks Reed and Cale’s stomping, pounding noise-fest by stomping and pounding. Not as meters-in-the-red recorded as the original, so it’s smoother, but definitely not calm. Alliteratively-speaking, a down and dirty delight.
· “European Son” – Iggy Pop & Matt Sweeney: The most unhinged song on the original album, Lou assaulted his electric guitar while John strung his viola with steel guitar strings to make it screech, and Moe Tucker beat the hell out of floor toms. I love that Iggy drops the baritone singing voice he’s been using in recent years and goes back to Fun House, Raw Power-esque wailing, a great echo of Lou’s feral singing on the original. I know, this one is where all non-VU fans get off the bus, but it ends I’ll Be Your Mirror as explosively as the original and leaves the same lingering metallic taste in your mouth. It also points the way to the aural fever dream of the Velvet’s second album, White Light/White Heat, my personal fave.
EARWORM: “I’m Waiting for the Man” – Matt Berninger: An easy entry point for the uninitiated. I think.
BONUS EARWORM: “I’m Waiting for the Man” – Velvet Underground: The original, in all its brilliantly sleazy glory.
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