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White Light / White Heat

The Velvet Underground

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iTunes Review

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.

Customer Reviews

The Bible of Noise Rock

This album is not for everybody. You need to be prepared for the assault that is not just on your ears but on your whole idea of music. Some of the most incredible sounds in the history of music were recorded on this album - the VU was the anti-psychedelic crowd, yet they pumped out stuff that sounded way more "psychedelic" than that crowd ever thought of hearing. The VU can rock 'n' roll like the Stones, jam like the Dead, groove like the Groovies, and tell stories like Bob Dylan...who else can do that?

! Proceed with Caution !

I went into my local record store looking to buy the Velvet Underground and Nico, probably the most pop-accessible album by the Velvet Underground. To my dismay they we're sold out and didn’t have it in stock, but the guy behind the desk recommended White Light/White Heat. I knew the guy and trusted him because he knows my musical tastes, so I decided to buy WL/WH instead of waiting for VU & Nico. Now this guy must be crazy because this is possibly one of the most insane records of all time, but somehow, someway, I fell in love with it almost instantly. If you own Velvet Underground and Nico and you like some of the songs on that then I would lightly recommend this but proceed with caution, because unlike me you probably won't fall in love with it right away. Just give it some time and you will eventually like it after some time. My favorite tracks are "Here She Comes Now", "The Gift", "White Light / White Heat", and "I Heard Her Call My Name". I like “Sister Ray” but I have to be in a certain mood to enjoy that song. The only song that I don't really like is "Lady Godiva's Operation", but I don’t hate it and can listen to it every once in a while. Proceed with Caution!

Melted Banana

In a lot of ways, the title says it all. The album is a musical expression of blinding light and temperature, as well as deafening sound. I think everything from the hard-psyche scene in San Fran down to hardcore punk can be derived from this album. Bands like Sonic Youth and Nirvana were taking direct quees from this album, and the feedback on the lead parts of "I Heard Her Call My Name" could very well be the cause for our depleting O-Zone layer. "Sister Ray" is a monumental effort, definately the first expression of "punk rock", and yes, jamming over it is way more fun than "Freebird" or "Louie, Louie". "The Gift" is completely nutso, John Cale taking advantage of drop-D tuning and Lou Reed entertaining us with his tales of love turned gory. "Lady Godiva's Operation" has a similaar plot of good intetions resulting in a pile of hemoglobin, but takes a more melodic approach. I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that Irmin Schmidt had this on when Can did _Ege Bamyasi_. "Here She Comes Now" is a beautiful exception to the noise on this album, as gentle as an icecream cone surrounded by napalm. Overall, _White Light/White Heat_ is one of the first true progressions in music, and is responsible for half of what gets shoved down your throats these days.

Biography

Formed: 1964 in New York, NY

Genre: Rock

Years Active: '60s, '70s, '90s

Few rock groups can claim to have broken so much new territory, and maintain such consistent brilliance on record, as the Velvet Underground during their brief lifespan. It was the group's lot to be ahead of, or at least out of step with, their time. The mid- to late '60s was an era of explosive growth and experimentation in rock, but the Velvets' innovations — which blended the energy of rock with the sonic adventurism of the avant-garde, and introduced a new degree of social realism and sexual...
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