As VU quips go, "They only sold a few thousand records, but everyone who bought one started a band," is my least favorite; the "everyone who bought one became a record critic" variant seems more apt. For my money, the best thing ever written about the Velvet Underground remains this bit from Rob Sheffield's entry in the SPIN Alternative Record Guide: "We understand this music so well because every corner of it has been absorbed. VU studio goofs have become established sub-genres."
It's true. From the time they disbanded, the Velvet Underground have been present in most skewed versions of rock, from glam to punk to new wave to noise. If you only considered that Kraftwerk, Can, and David Bowie idolized and borrowed from VU, and think about all the places their music has traveled, well, that covers an insane amount of geography right there. Indie rock, in particular, is unthinkable without them, so it feels a bit odd to be reviewing a double-disc set of their best work for Pitchfork: Chances are, you've already internalized the four albums proper and Live 1969, and could tell me quickly which 30 songs are your all-time favorites. Needless to say, this compilation wasn't designed with the average Pitchfork reader in mind.
What it was designed to do-- and what it does rather well-- is replace 1989's The Best of the Velvet Underground: Words and Music of Lou Reed, an awkwardly titled, coldly assembled sampler that was in print far too long. Gold is two discs selling for a single disc price, and it includes almost all of the best-known and most often covered songs in their catalog: nine of 11 songs from The Velvet Underground & Nico, three of six from White Light/White Heat, five of 10 from Velvet Underground, and three live versions of the 10 songs from Loaded. The two unreleased collections VU and Another View are also well represented, and two songs from Nico's Chelsea Girl are included, as well.
Someone with $14 to spend who hasn't heard a note of this is in for a ride. Personally, I've had a hard time getting past "Sister Ray", which has the most gloriously filthy combination of guitar, organ, and amps ever assembled in one room. I just want to keep hitting the "back" button. But it's also been nice to revisit the shrieking viola of "Venus in Furs", which alarmed me when I first heard it so many years ago but now just sounds darkly sensual and almost playful. Hearing the heavy stuff next to twee bits like "Sunday Morning" and "I'll Be Your Mirror", which stand up beautifully, only affirms the staggering range of this band, as exemplified in the Sheffield quote above.
The more I think about their range, the clearer it becomes why the Velvet Underground are so difficult to anthologize for listeners who want to understand the full scope of what made them important. Their albums really are albums, and you need to hear the great songs next to the less accessible ones to get a full picture of the band. You gotta sit through "European Son" to hear how crazily noisy they could get and plod through "The Gift" to understand how badly they wanted their music to be taken as seriously as literature. And hey, how can a 30-song collection of Velvet Underground songs not include any Moe Tucker leads? Reed and John Cale provided the cool and Nico was around a while for the beauty, but the Velvet Underground picture is so must more interesting when you consider that this sweet-voiced woman occasionally took the mic to sing a simple ditty. Still, where summarizations of their catalog are concerned, Gold is easily the best yet, and while aspiring music fanatics will want and need all of the band's individual full-lengths, this should suit the rest of the world just fine.
