Why is the Velvet Underground’s fourth album called ‘Loaded’?
Once the songs are all finished, the sessions are over, and the finishing touches are polished and ready, an important question arises: what will the album be called? It’s possibly the most crucial decision of the whole process as that one name comes to define the entire collection of songs and the new chapter it opens in the life of an artist or a band. It’s a name that will be written into their history books and hopefully remembered for decades to come as they unleash the new record into the world and hope they made the right decision. When the question was asked of The Velvet Underground in 1970, the answer came back as a one-word reply: Loaded.
As the decades have passed, Loaded has become more than just another title for another album. The record is remembered as one of the most beloved rock albums ever made, sitting alongside The Velvet Underground and Nico as one of the band’s most important releases and most popular collection, containing some of the biggest tracks.
But even more so than that, Loaded, to many, is the last true Velvet Underground album. Sure, Squeeze came after it in 1973, but by then, Lou Reed was gone. The group’s founding songwriter quit the band right before Loaded came out. To many, that was the death knell for the group. For Reed fans, there was no band without him, as his lyricism, distinctive voice and experimental spirit were the life force behind the project. So when he left, so did their interest.
Loaded, therefore, becomes not just another album but a crucial chapter in the band’s story. For Reed, it becomes his closing remarks, giving the group some of his best compositions as a parting gift before he went off into his solo career.
It could be said that as the years have gone by, the album has become Loaded with history. With so much to unpack about the context of the release and its positioning in the legacy of both Reed and the group, it holds a weighty position in their story. But when it comes to the title, its name is simple, short, snappy yet perfectly symbolic of the band in the moment, capturing that era of the end of the 1960s and the opening of something new.
Why did the Velvet Underground call their album ‘Loaded’?
As the 1960s ended and the 1970s opened, The Velvet Underground were undergoing changes. They had been for a while now. After they first emerged as the underground art scene’s new favourite band, managed by Andy Warhol as they made experimental noises that were more like performance art than songs, they embraced their status. But as the years rolled by, members left, and record labels got involved, things had to change.
Tracks like the 17-minute-long odyssey ‘Sister Ray’ don’t sell records. They don’t help a band break into the big time, and they don’t make money. As time went on and more money was poured into the band to allow them to make these albums, the pressure mounted for them to make it in return.
The story goes that their record label, Cotillion, which was part of Atlantic, turned around to the band and demanded an album “loaded with hits”. They wanted the band to make a record that could sell, with a focus on creating radio-ready tracks that were catchy, more upbeat and more engaging to a wider scene.
Doug Yule remembered, “On Loaded there was a big push to produce a hit single, there was that mentality, which one of these is a single, how does it sound when we cut it down to 3.5 minutes, so that was a major topic for the group at that point.” Rather than venturing off down experimental routes, they focussed on trying to make commercial hits that appealed to a broader audience. In this way, their sound expanded into new territories by focussing on creating something new for the band simply by keeping things simple.
They certainly succeeded as the album is fully loaded with timeless rock tracks like ‘Rock & Roll’, ‘Sweet Jane’, ‘Oh Sweet Nuthin’ and more.
But nothing is that simple…
It was not in Lou Reed and his band’s nature to simply do what they were told. As a band forged from experimentation, they would never roll over, make some hits and simply call the album Loaded as a nod to their obedience.
Instead, the title has two meanings. As well as being inspired by their label’s request, it also references the band’s drug use and the idea of “getting loaded”, keeping them tied into the countercultural world even as they tried to expand it. While making an album loaded with hits, the group were also loaded with drugs.
That same double meaning is scattered throughout the lyrics. ‘Sweet Jane’ can be read as a stand-in metaphor for Mary Jane, marijuana, or the hazed-out drug scene in New York in the ‘60s and ‘70s. In each song, the band put in veiled references to elicit substances, burying them deeper in metaphors than previous records to allow the album to keep its commercial appeal.
