Hacker News Reader

Comment by mcphilip | Hacker News Reader

RIP Lou Reed, one of my favorite musicians. The song Heroin has so much dissonance and noise throughout that it's almost revolting to listen to. Over time it grew into one of my favorite songs in that I learned to find beauty in the clash of consonance and dissonance. At the risk of hyperbole, that mindset of finding something new from the conflict of opposing forces is something that now applies in far more areas of my life than just music, and the VU was the vehicle that introduced me to that philosophy.

View on HN

I'm interested that "Heroin" was the song that made you feel like that. I've always felt that "European Son" (YT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igWyYA_r06Y) was the most experimental and noisy song on the album, and I always experience a real visceral thrill when listening to it (especially that part with the roar-ish thing and then the glass shattering). The guitar parts are absurd, the band sometimes plays straight screeching noise, and the song barely holds together. "Heroin" feels contained by comparison.

In a similar vein, considering your appreciation for "the clash of consonance and dissonance," I hope you're getting a chance to see My Bloody Valentine during their short tour in the next few weeks.

As someone who is a music fanatic, but had never heard Velvet Underground until right now, I find "European Son" quite interesting, but "Heroin" didn't do anything for me.

I'll check out more VU, any suggestions for songs/albums in a similar vein (experimental, noisy, good guitar/bass interplay, heavily instrumental)?

If you're interested in experimental and noisy, you can't really beat Metal Machine Music. It's practically unlistenable ;).

As fun as "Metal Machine Music" is, it's a bit non-musical for my tastes -- you wont find interplay and solid musicianship, just noise. I suggest the next step you take is Velvet Underground's second album, "White Light / White Heat". It meets your feature requests fairly well, perhaps better than "Velvet Underground & Nico", the album "European Son" is from, would.

Seconded. I also prefer "I Heard Her Call My Name" to "Sister Ray" from the next album.

> The song Heroin has so much dissonance

I bought the album in 1987 during a school lunch break. Someone saw, and wanted to play it in the common room. There are many really nice tunes on the album, but unfortunately Heroin was the first song that got played so that record got taken off pretty fast.

I agree wholeheartedly, The Velvet Underground has always been one of my favorite bands and has shaped my musical taste. It was the band that made me look into punk, glam rock, new wave, and psychobilly.

My favorite song is ‘Beginning to see the light’.

Heroin is my favourite Lou Reed song. I remember playing it to get psyched up for my finals.

"It always bothers me to see people writing 'RIP' when a person dies. It just feels so insincere and like a cop-out. To me, 'RIP' is the microwave dinner of posthumous honors."

-Lou Reed

I came here specifically hoping that someone had already mentioned the song "Heroin". I got chills the first time I heard it, and I still do.

I think my favorite Velvet Underground song would have to be "Here She Comes Now", because I get the same feeling from Kurt Cobain's cover of it[0].

> Over time it grew into one of my favorite songs in that I learned to find beauty in the clash of consonance and dissonance.

Do you listen to the Jesus and Mary Chain, by any chance?

[0] Perhaps blasphemous to mention a cover on a thread about Lou Reed's death, but hey, if it were't for VU, the cover would never have existed.

It took me a while until "Heroin" got under my skin, but when it did, it got all the way under. You have to listen to it as loud as you can possibly stand, and not repeat it too often or it will give you an immaculate headache.

Just Like Honey reminds me of VU.

Heroin is great, but other songs like Pale Blue Eyes make me tingle more

Jesus and the mary chain is also hugely influential, do you listen to Spacemen 3 at all?

Heroin took me years to appreciate, once I "snapped" that the dissonance is a metaphor for the addicts' life I fell in love with it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com