Peel Slowly and See ( 5 CD Box ) - Polydor 1995

Tracks: 1. Venus In Furs (Demo) / 2. Prominent Men (Demo) / 3. Heroin (Demo) / 4. I'm Waiting For The Man (Demo) / 5. Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams (Demo) / 6. All Tomorrows Parties (Demo) // 1. All Tomorrow's Parties (Single Version) / 2. Sunday Morning / 3. I'm Waiting For The Man / 4. Femme Fatale / 5. Venus In Furs / 6. Run Run Run / 7. All Tomorrow's Parties / 8. Heroin / 9. There She Goes Again / 10. I'll Be Your Mirror / 11. The Black Angel's Death Song / 12. European Son / 13. Melody Laughter (Live) / 14. It Was A Pleasure Then / 15. Chelsea Girls / 1. There Is No Reason (Demo) / 2. Sheltered Life (Demo) / 3. It's All Right (The Way That You Live) (Demo) / 4. I'm Not Too Sorry (Now That You're Gone) (Demo) / 5. Here She Comes Now (Demo) / 6. Guess I'm Falling In Love (Live) / 7. Booker T. (Live) / 8. White Light/White Heat / 9. The Gift / 10. Lady Godiva's Operation / 11. Here She Comes Now / 12. I Heard Her Call My Name / 13. Sister Ray / 14. Stephanies Says / 15. Temption Inside Your Heart / 16. Hey Mr. Rain (Version One) // 1. What Goes On (Live) / 2. Candy Says (Closet Mix) / 3. What Goes On (Closet Mix) / 4. Some Kinda Love (Closet Mix) / 5. Pale Blue Eyes (Closet Mix) / 6. Jesus (Closet Mix) / 7. Beginning To See The Light (Closet Mix) / 8. I'm Set Free (Closet Mix) / 9. That's The Story Of My Life (Closet Mix) / 10. The Murder Mystery (Closet Mix) / 11. After Hours (Closet Mix) / 12. Foggy Notion / 13. I Can't Stand It / 14. I'm Sticking With You / 15. One Of These Days /16. Lisa Says / 17. It Just Too Much (Live) / 18. Countess From Hong Kong (Demo) / 1. Who Loves The Sun / 2. Sweet Jane (Full Length Version) / 3. Rock And Roll / 4. Cool It Down / 5. New Age (Full Length Version) / 6. Head Held High / 7. Lonesome Cowboy Bill / 8. I Found A Reason / 9. Train Round The Bend / 10. Oh! Sweet Nuthin / 11. Satellite Of Love / 12. Walk And Talk / 13. Oh Gin / 14. Sad Song / 15. Ocean / 16. Ride Into The Sun / 17. Some Kinda Love (Live) / 18. I'll Be Your Mirror (Live) / 19. I Love You

Comments:

This is without doubt a 5 star CD-box release - containing all 4 original V.U. albums; at a very fair price. I'm overall very satisfied with the sound; some may find the sound of "White Light / White Heat" a little hard to digest, but that was how the record was made.

Apart from one track, all of the great "lost" album "VU" is also here; but strangely enough there is only one track from the other rarities compilation "Another View".

CD 1 contains early demos of songs from the first album, and these tracks are mostly only historical interest. The 4 other CDs each contain an original album and plenty of contemporary bonus-tracks.

I had not heard "Loaded" for several years, and both the songs and the sound qulity was a great positive surprise for me. I remembered the materal as much more uneven and the sound quality as pretty dull. The songs are great and the sound quality is fine. Actually the most "poppy" songs like "Who Loves the Sun" ( which I like a lot ), sound pretty similar to the last and underrates V.U. album "Squeeze", and a handful of the best tracks from that album would have made this release even better; even though Lou Reed is not playing on them.

I would have liked to have the original CD covers instead of these "tape" covers, and though the 86 pages book has many interesting historical facts and photos, I would have loved to have more information about each particular track; who plays the leads etc.very naked live-feel to most of these recordings, most of which very well may be "undubbed first takes" featuring only acoustic guitars and vocals. A few tracks contains additional instruments such as cello, flute and harmonica. Their song-writing at this point is not quite up to the ( very high ) level of their later albums, and the songs are generally not quite as melodic.

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