Celebrating The Velvet Underground: The 10 best vinyl deals available on Amazon this week
Welcome back to Far Out’s weekly vinyl corner feature, where we look to bring you a tempting selection of records from some of our favourite artists, bargain vinyl deals to look out for, and unmissable limited-edition releases. This week, to celebrate what would have been Lou Reed’s 81st birthday, we bring a selection of albums from The Velvet Underground and its members.
Vinyl sales grew for the 15th consecutive year in 2022, rising to 5.5million units, the highest level since 1990, when …But Seriously by Phil Collins was the year’s biggest-selling studio album. The return to plastic has steadily climbed since the invasion of streaming services in the late 2000s. While the weightless, highly accessible and practical format is great for discovering and consuming swathes of new music while you’re out and about, there’s nothing like coming home to a bit of vinyl.
Fellow collectors will agree that if there’s an artist or album you love, there’s always a good reason to have the turntable at the ready and a 12″ slot reserved on the shelf for inevitable expansion. The sound quality of vinyl brings something more hearty and vibrant with its analogue warmth and crisp definition that there really isn’t a substitute for.
So if, like me, you have a soft spot for these groovy discs of plastic, allow me to walk you through ten hot picks for this week. The list includes a selection of Velvet Underground essentials alongside a scattering of brilliant solo and collaborative albums from the post-Velvet years.
The following selections have been handpicked by Far Out Magazine, and as a result, we may earn from qualifying purchases.
The 10 best vinyl deals available on Amazon this week:
The Velvet Underground – Loaded
Following The Velvet Underground’s second self-titled (“Grey”) album of 1969, the band returned to the studio without their founding drummer Moe Tucker. Without her unique beat-keeping style, the band moved towards a more refined and pop-oriented sound.
Despite perhaps losing some of the characteristic Velvets’ touch, Loaded brought a more than satisfying batch of tracks. The album is home to some of the New york band’s greatest hits, including ‘Sweet Jane’, ‘Rock & Roll’, ‘New Age’, ‘Who Loves the Sun’ and ‘Oh! Sweet Nuthin”.
Available for purchase here for £24.75.
Lou Reed & John Cale – Songs for Drella [Original Issue]
In 1990, three years after the death of their artistic mentor and friend Andy Warhol, Lou Reed reunited with John Cale for an album in honour of the late pop artist and visionary. Songs for Drella marked the pair’s first full collaborative album since 1968’s White Light/White Heat.
The 1990 release was named Songs for Drella, Drella being an old nickname for Warhol fusing “Dracula” and “Cinderella”. The brilliant album flows as a poetic retracing of Warhol’s extraordinary life. Highlights include ‘Style it Takes’, ‘Smalltown’, ‘Work’ and ‘Nobody but You’.
Available for purchase here for £42.74.
Lou Reed – Transformer
Lou Reed released Transformer in 1972; the music is just as iconic as the Mick Rock photograph used for the artwork. This LP became a commercial success and marked his breakthrough as a solo artist. Prominent hits include ‘Walk on the Wild Side’, ‘Perfect Day’ and ‘Satellite of Love’.
Transformer was buoyed by the attentive production of David Bowie, which allowed it to reach a wider audience in the UK. The music within contains some of Reed’s most refined songwriting, which was graced with the instrumental involvement of Bowie and Mick Ronson.
Available for purchase here for £25.95.
The Velvet Underground – The Velvet Underground & Nico
The Velvet Underground’s debut album has to go down in history as one of the most iconic and influential records of all time. Sure, the 1960s had a host of exceedingly vital bands and musicians – especially in the British invasion cohort, but very few albums have the timelessness of this Andy Warhol-directed masterpiece.
Brian Eno once described the ongoing impact of The Velvet Underground & Nico perfectly: “I was talking to Lou Reed the other day, and he said that the first Velvet Underground record sold only 30,000 copies in its first five years. Yet, that was an enormously important record for so many people. I think everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band!”
Available for purchase here for £20.27.
Nico – BBC Session 1971 EP
Nico was not widely considered an official member of The Velvet Underground, with her contributions limited to the seminal debut album. After that album, she focused on a solo career which boasted classic albums like 1967’s Chelsea Girl and the 1968 John Cale-produced The Marble Index.
This little gem found on Amazon is an EP of recordings taken during Nico’s appearance on John Peel’s ‘Top Gear’, a BBC Radio 1 show on February 2nd, 1971. The four tracks included are ‘No One Is There’ and ‘Frozen Warnings’ from The Marble Index, ‘Janitor Of Lunacy’ from Desertshore and the single ‘Secret Side’.
Available for purchase here for £41.79.
John Cale – Mercy
In January 2023, John Cale released his seventeenth studio album as a solo artist. At age 80, the legendary multi-instrumentalist and avant-garde extraordinaire shows no signs of slowing down. Mercy features collaborations with Tony Allen, Laurel Halo, Weyes Blood, Tei Shi, Animal Collective’s Avey Tare and Panda Bear, Dev Hynes, Sylvan Esso, Actress and Fat White Family.
In a 4.5-star review, Far Out described the album as: “an impressive mixture of young, old, popular, experimental, day and night. It contains an eclectic spread of familiar styles, all seamlessly arranged under one roof. In this long-awaited release, Cale shows an undying thirst for musical exploration, a sentimental connection to the past, and, perhaps least surprisingly, his virtuosic production and instrumental talents.”
Available for purchase here for £21.57.
The Velvet Underground – White Light/White Heat
After the underwhelming commercial response encountered by their now-iconic debut album of 1967, The Velvet Underground hit the studio to record a follow-up. This time, Reed and Cale loosened their artistic whim from the influence of Warhol and Nico, and it made for a particularly experimental and dour release.
White Light/White Heat isn’t what one would call a poop record, but it contains some of The Velvet Underground’s most artistically compelling material, including the 17-minute epic, ‘Sister Ray’, John Cale’s short story recital in ‘The Gift’, ‘Here She Comes Now’ and, of course, the titular rock-out.
Available for purchase here for £22.91.
Lou Reed – Berlin
Following the success of Reed’s 1972 Bowie collaboration, Transformer, he embarked on a slightly more ambitious project. Berlin took the story fragment introduced in ‘Berlin’, a stand-alone song appearing on Reed’s eponymous solo debut album of 1971. Reed had been happy to leave it as it was, but his producer Bob Ezrin saw the song as the beginning of something much grander.
Reed stepped up to the challenge and recorded this perfectly tragic concept album that follows the story of a spiralling relationship that ends in unrelenting despair. Highlight tracks include ‘Lady Day’, ‘Berlin’, ‘Caroline Says II’ ‘How Do You Think It Feels’ and ‘The Kids’.
Available for purchase here for £21.94.
John Cale & Brian Eno – Wrong Way Up
Roxy Music alumnus and legendary producer Brian Eno joined forces with The Velvet Underground’s early avant-garde extraordinaire, John Cale, in 1990 for this gem. Admittedly the album cover is one of the worst in history, perhaps just leaving last place to Simple Minds’ emetic New Gold Dream cover. So, do yourself a favour and avert your eyes, but I implore you to give the music a whirl.
The music on Wrong Way Up comes as a bit of a surprise. Cale and Eno are generally known for more niche and experimental musings, whereas this album boasts a number of wonderfully accessible pop hits such as ‘One World’, ‘Lay My Love’ and ‘Spinning Away’.
Available for purchase here for £24.44.
The Velvet Underground – The Velvet Underground (Grey Album) [Super Deluxe Edition]
Following John Cale’s departure from The Velvet Underground in 1968, Lou Reed took a tighter hold on the reins heading into the next self-titled project. The Velvet Underground brought yet another collection of impressively sprawling and immersive rock tracks that range from the delicate ‘Pale Blue Eyes’ to the experimental and intense ‘The Murder Mystery’.
While the album retained threads of the band’s early, progressive DNA, it began to face towards the more refined content of the subsequent release, Loaded. The album is packed with fan favourites, including ‘Beginning to See the Light’, ‘Some Kinda Love’, ‘What Goes On’ and ‘Candy Says’.
Available for purchase here for £23.86.
![The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground (Grey Album) [Super Deluxe Edition]](https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/static/uploads/1/2023/03/The-Velvet-Underground-The-Velvet-Underground-Grey-Album-Super-Deluxe-Edition.jpg)
