Tag: The Velvet Underground & Nico

Turntables & Vinyl #25 – The Alternate Covers

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It has been almost two years since I’ve done a Turntables & Vinyl post. And since today is the 2,000th Post on the site, why not do another. 2,000 Posts!! That is insane. I can’t believe I have bored you for that long now and yet you still come back. Thank you for that.

These Turntable & Vinyl post are basically about my collection or interesting things about collecting and this one is about collecting. As far as collecting goes, I haven’t gone down the rabbit hole of getting every variant of an album, but I have found myself, a little unknowingly, picking up duplicate albums with the big difference being they have a completely different album cover. I don’t have a lot, but I am noticing more and more that if I know there is a different album cover, I am now actively looking for it. However, most of the time it has been by utter accident that I found a different cover and didn’t know it existed.

This post is going to show you the handful that I have and then show the ones that I am actively hunting down. But first, why do artist have different album covers in the first place? Most of the time it is simply down to controversy. Some album covers have a little nudity or something offensive that pisses off the wrong people so in order to sell those albums in certain stores a new cover is done. In other parts, it is simply different tastes in different parts of the world. And then it might be a reissue so they change up the cover a little, either way, I think it is cool and so I am now collecting alternate covers.

This is my most recent acquisition and it is from Joe Satriani. The one on the left was the album cover I originally had and all I knew about and it turns out it is the European release cover and the one used in the 1988 reissue. But apparently there was alternate cover because I found the one on the right in a record store in St. Augustine Florida. It really isn’t the alternate cover because I believe it is the original release cover from 1986 and the one i had first was actually the alternate cover. Both are awesome.

Here is another one where I had the alternate cover first, the one on the left, before i had the original cover, the one on the right. The original cover was the UK only release of the original album. The giant snake on the left is the alternate cover for the releases outside of the UK. Not sure why the difference, but both are equally cool.

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The Original vs. The Cover – “Heroin”

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For this episode of The Original vs. The Cover, we are going to talk about the song “Heroin” by the band The Velvet Underground. The song is off their 1967 debut album ‘The Velvet Underground & Nico” which I reviewed a few weeks back. The Cover version we will be bouncing up against the Original is by Billy Idol off his 1993 album ‘Cyberpunk’ which I have also reviewed on this site.

The song was written by Lou Reed and produced by Andy Warhol. That combination has to produce something interesting. And I am sure this is a shocker, but the song is about drug use. I know, I know, stunned right? According to Reed when he was working as a songwriter for a record company, the song was written when he was told to go in to a room and write some some surfing songs, well this is what came out. I think he missed the point and thankfully for us, he did. The song doesn’t condone or condemn drug use and seems to be about the effects of drug use. Whatever the meaning, the song works on so many levels.

We will go through each song and then at the end, I will tell you who I think has the better song…and it isn’t always the original which is why I like doing these posts. So sit back and enjoy.

THE VELVET UNDERGROUND

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You Picked It!! – The Velvet Underground & Nico – ‘The Velvet Underground & Nico’ – Album Review

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Alright…You Picked It! And this one wasn’t really close. The one you picked was The Velvet Underground & Nico.  The votes were as follows:

  1. The Velvet Underground – ‘The Velvet Underground & Nico’ – 8 votes
  2. ZZ Top – ‘Eliminator’ – 4 votes
  3. The Rolling Stones – ‘Tattoo You” – 3 votes
  4. Wig Wam – ‘Never Say Die’ – 3 votes
  5. Chris Stapleton – ‘Starting Over’ – 1 Vote

Thanks to all for participating.  The March choices will be up on Saturday!

The Velvet Underground & Nico – ‘The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967):

If I thought the last album was a little daunting to review with The Beach Boys ‘Pet Sounds’, this one is just as daunting a task. This has also been called one of the greatest albums of all time and one of the most influential albums as well. Punk, grunge and numerous other genres all owe a tip of the hat to this album. With ‘Pet Sounds’, I found the album was really good, but I didn’t think it was one of the best ever although “God Only Knows” is one of the best songs. So how will this one fare? I will come out and just say it, I love this album! I mean this thing far exceeded any expectations especially since it has been labeled as art pop and experimental rock. I wasn’t sure what to expect and this wasn’t it. I have to say this thing kind of blew me away.

First up, what an awesome band. The Velvet Underground is the great Lou Reed and John Cale as well as Sterling Morrison and Maureen Tucker. And then you throw the German singer, Nico, in the mix and not a bad bunch of people to have sitting around playing music. And the strange part of the album is that Andy Warhol produced it. Andy does art, I didn’t realize he produced as well. The album came out on March 12, 1967 and sounds like a product of its time as you can tell it is an album of the 60’s, but there is so much more.

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You Pick It! – Which Album to Review in February?

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You, my reader, are going to pick an album for me to review each month.  It is really simple…first, I will give you 5 albums to choose from and second, you will tell me which one of those you would like to see reviewed on the site.  See…simple!

There are a few simple rules I have put in to place in my selections.  They are…

  • One has to be a new release (within the last month)
  • One has to be one I have never heard before (new releases don’t count for this one)
  • One has to be from a genre I don’t normally listen to at all or very often
  • And the last two are choices from my collection that I haven’t reviewed before

What are the 5 albums you ask?  Funny you should ask because I have those right here…

  New Release – Wig Wam – ‘Never Say Die’ – Their back!!

 Never Heard Before – The Velvet Underground – ‘The Velvet Underground & Nico’

Not My Normal Genre – Chris Stapleton ‘ Starting Over’

  From My Collection – The Rolling Stones – ‘Tattoo You’

  From My Collection – ZZ Top – ‘Eliminator’

Let me know which one you would like to see and sometime in February, I will post a review of the album that gets the most votes. You have one week to decide and from there I will start listening to the album and do a review.

Thanks for participating!!

Turntables & Vinyl #24 – Interactive Album Covers

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It is Thanksgiving 2020 and dang what a crazy year it has been. One thing I have found to give me peace and help deal with stress during this Covid impacted world is my vinyl collection. I am of course thankful for my health and my family as that is a given, but since this is a music site, I need to tie in music somehow, I am also thankful for my vinyl collection. It brings me great joy. To be able to pull out an album and play it and it might help my mood brings me great satisfaction. There are so many things I love about it.

One of the things I love about vinyl is that occasionally you find an album cover that is interactive in some way. Something about the picture can be manipulated, changed or just turned to a different angle for a dramatically different picture. This makes for the most fun and enjoyable album experience. For this version of Turntables & Vinyl, we are going to explore those I have in my collection and maybe one I want to get in the future. I will break it out in to different categories. And let’s get right in to the first category…

Perspective

Some album covers have a cover that changes the look of the cover strictly from the perspective of how you are looking at it. A changing perspective is actually a good thing to have in life as well. We change our perspective on the world depending on how we look at it. Why not take that ability and turn it in to an album cover. A couple I have in my collection do just that.

Def Leppard – ‘Retro Active’: This album cover looks different depending on the position you hold it. Up close, it is a beautifully lady sitting in front of a mirror doing make-up. From far away it is a Skull. See what I mean below…Look at the picture closely on your screen and see the girl, pull the screen away from you (or sit further back) and you will see the skull.

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