Currently living in my CD player is Velvet Underground and Nico (deluxe edition) I probably don't need another copy of this album, there are already at least four copies within the confines of Casa Carrie. Without searching I can cite:
- My [then] contemporary vinyl pressing from the early 80s when I started to get into Warhol, punk, Brigid Berlin, Joe D'Allesandro, the Ramones--- all the things that matter to a growing deviant.
- An original 60s vinyl pressing. It's in shocking condition but it does have an original Warhol banana skin still barely attached.
- The first CD issue
- The 20th [or maybe 25th, or reunion souvenir or something] Anniversary CD re-issue remastered.
The deluxe package, which I can't warrant to be new, is an intriguing little two disc set. The first disc is the Standard issue of Velvet Underground and Nico plus a few tracks from Nico's Chelsea Girl album including the titular track.
What sold it for me is the second disc which is presented in the original mono format that it was apparently released. This isn't something I know about, it sounds a lot like an Andy Warhol intervention to me. Whatever the explanation, I was compelled to have it.
Surprisingly, the decision proved more rewarding than I expected. Velvet Underground and Nico in mono is a completely unexpected venture into much more Warholian territory. The stripped back effect of the mono serves to make the music seem less chaotic. An extra layer of Warhol's trademark blankness is added in the 'missing' half of the stereo signal. It also arrives at the listeners ears with it's brilliance cloaked in a certain self-effacing simplicity.
The mono version plays as substantially more intimate than the recordings that I have been used to. The deeply introspective mood of the album becomes so immediate as to risk tipping into melodrama. Nico's vocals sound more vulnerable and unreal than she has ever sounded to my ear.
This version of Velvet Underground and Nico sounds like it might be being heard through an old fashioned transistor radio or a 'portable' mono record player 60s style. I need now to find a proper mono channel to hear it utterly perfectly.
I'm not sure if the CD counts as an authentic re-presentation of the album and I'm not much fussed beyond a curiosity that will one day be answered in reading. If I know anything about art it's that seeking to esatblish what is authentic in Warhol's work is labour in vain.
Every Chelsea Girl should have a copy of this one on their shelves. I'm sure that the royalties go somewhere useful...
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