The remastering process was handled by Bill Levenson, who's been working on Velvets material since the mid-80s rarities collections VU and Another VU, and who oversaw the 1995 Peel Slowly and See box set that collected all of the group's studio recordings. On paper it may seem indulgent, but listening through the entire massive collection of material results in a sharper-edged portrait of the group than there's ever been, with all of the danger filled back in.įirst there's the album proper.
So aside from the 45 minutes of Chelsea Girl, you've got five hours of essentially the same 11 songs presented over and over in various levels of audio fidelity. The new super deluxe edition of TVU&N consists of a new stereo remaster of the album, a new mono remaster (both taken from the original tapes), a disc of alternate versions and mixes of the songs, a disc of practice sessions recorded at Andy Warhol's Factory, a live recording from around the time the album was recorded (spread across two discs), and a remaster of Nico's solo debut, Chelsea Girl, which the Velvets performed on. Is a limited-edition "super deluxe" six-disc box set really going to help restore any of the ineffable outsider cool that it's lost over the years? Actually, yeah, it is.
The most dangerous record of 1967 has been absorbed into the establishment rock canon the paradoxical fame it earned from its hilariously terrible sales figures in its early years has been negated by reissue after deluxe-edition reissue and its transgressive kinky-druggy menace has been smothered by the embrace of millions of overly precious Wes Anderson acolytes. Forty-five years after its release, everything that was supposed to have made The Velvet Underground & Nico special has been nearly eradicated by its own legend.
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