ACS Repost: White Light/White Heat

Whenever I publish an album review for ACS, I'll post it here.

White Light/White Heat by the Velvet Underground

7.5/10

An unfortunately large number of people disregard the Velvet Underground as an avant-garde bunch of nonsense-makers, like Captain Beefheart and others from the 60s avant-garde movement. The main reason for this assumption is their second album, White Light/White Heat.

This album is unbelievably loud, noisy, and nonsensical. It borders on the edge of musical acceptability. Featuring wild experiments, endless improvisation, long jams, nonsensical instrumentation, and innuendo-layden lyrics, this album is a great look at the strange, twisted, fucked up landscape of the 60s avant-garde underground.

This album breaks dozens of musical rules. The opener descends into chaos. The second song has a story in it, which is incredibly disturbing. Another tells a sick story of a botched operation. And another acts as a homage to the early 1900s classical music with an atonal guitar solo that drowns everything out. But the closer is the strangest. 17 minutes of endless improvisation, disobeying the goals of jazz artists, who aimed for harmony, by creating a chaotic cacophony of noise.

White Light/White Heat is not impossible to listen to, however, if one keeps an open ear. The mainstream listener will listen to one second of much of this album and throw it out, but if one enjoys the strange and nonsensical, this album is for you. This is why the album has such a legacy. The insane rule-breaking styles have influenced dozens of artists in the years since its release, who are intrigued by the strange and somewhat hypnotizing sounds of White Light/White Heat.

1. White Light/White Heat - 9/10  An upbeat opener that sounds like an avant-garde version of their earlier song "I'm Waiting for the Man." This song is a loud piano-base romp that describes the effects of amphetamines that were popular in the underground at that time. It ends after a descent into chaos. 
2. The Gift - 7/10  This song is really two different things entirely, spit into the different ears. One ear hears John Cale, the violist, telling a story written by Lou Reed. The other hears a loud feedback-saturated jam that's less than spectacular. The story is where all the attention is. It describes Waldo Jeffers, a man from Pennsylvania who pines for his lover Marcia in Wisconsin, and, unable to go there in a conventional way, decides to mail himself there. But he seals his packaging too tight and Marcia, unable to open it without a sharp pike, sends the pike into Waldo's skull.
3. Lady Godiva's Operation - 5/10 An incredibly fucked up song. Like The Gift, this song has two distinct parts, but they come as stages in the song. The first stage describes a promiscuous woman named Lady Goldiva. The second stage describes a back-alley operation that fails. It's incredibly disturbing and messed up, great for any fan of the twisted and macabre.
4. Here She Comes Now - 8/10 The calmest and most direct song on the album. A quiet 60s-style song, it's short and is entirely innuendo, punctuated by Reed's moans.
5. I Heard Her Call My Name - 3/10  Out of every song on this album, not one is anywhere near as grating as this one. It starts with feedback exploding into the listeners ears and Reed screaming "Wait a minute!" Reed then shouts out a series of nonsensical yells that are so distorted it's hard to decipher them. The track's feature is an atonal guitar solo that's almost exclusively feedback. Every now and then the song descends to the brink of madness before returning over the edge. The feedback finally ends it.
6. Sister Ray - 7/10 This song is unbelievable. Based around a simple three chord pattern and repetitive melody, the song is 17 minutes of endless improvisation that ranges from coordinated noise to sheer chaos. The track features three distinct elements. One is an organ that fills in gaps and is the most melodic. Second is an electric guitar that's played with chords and cadences half the time, and is just atonal nonsense the other half. The third element is Lou Reed singing a tale of debauchery, warning that "You'll stain the carpet" and repeating that "She's too busy sucking on my ding dong" and that "It's just like Sister Ray says." The song changes from near harmony at its start to chaos several times. The three main elements battle for supremacy, with Marie Tucker drumming quietly off in the corner. The song finally concludes with a crescendo and a sudden yell from the guitar.