The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground & Nico

THE REVIEW

I know, I'm neither the first nor the last to review this album, but I feel like I have to give my opinion, even if it will probably be the same as half the world's.

The album I want to talk about is "The Velvet Underground and Nico". An undisputed masterpiece, a work of art. But let's take it easy.

The Velvet Underground was born in the first half of the Sixties in New York, but it was exactly in '66 that they got a big chance to show the New York underground scene what they were made of: they met the artist Andy Warhol. He hired them as regular guests within his Factory, the rest is history, music history.

Let's now focus track-by-track on the album.

The album opens with Sunday Morning, a calm and paranoid description of a Sunday morning following a night of excesses accompanied by Lou Reed's altered voice.
The track number 2 is I'm Waiting For My Man, which tells the story of a student in search of his dose of heroin. The guitars create a sound that today we would almost define as punk.
Next is Femme Fatale, a song wanted by Warhol and performed with a great performance by Nico, a German singer with a "spectral" vocal range. It talks about a unscrupulous woman, who doesn't worry about how she treats her suitors.
The fourth track is Venus In Furs, where essentially a repetitive yet hypnotic guitar riff dominates, with Reed telling of a bizarre sexual triangle.
Next, we find Run Run Run, another song dedicated to drugs with one of the catchiest choruses of the album. 
In All Tomorrow's Parties, Nico tells a distorted Cinderella story with anguish and melancholy.
Track number 7, Heroin, is in my opinion the best of the album. It starts with a slow and sweet guitar riff, then moves on to a cruel and cold description of what it means to be enslaved to heroin.
There She Goes Again talks about a boy's jealousy towards his girlfriend, all accompanied by a sweet guitar sound that forms the background to Lou Reed's voice.
I'll Be Your Mirror is a pleasant love song in which Nico again shows the value of her voice, hypnotic and pleasant.
The penultimate track, The Black Angel's Death Song, and the last one, European Son, stand out from the rest of the album, where the sounds are ultimately sweet and catchy. In these last two songs, however, there is a strong feedback noise from the guitar, and Cale's distorted viola can be heard more than ever. They are the most experimental tracks of the entire album.

In conclusion, one can safely say that the album has rightfully entered the history of music. If it's not the best, it's undoubtedly the most influential and/or innovative album in history. Listening is recommended: it may not be to everyone's taste, but its value is undeniable.

TOP 3 Songs: Heroin, Sunday Morning, Femme Fatale.