Different colors made of tears

The Velvet Underground & Nico - The Velvet Underground & Nico - 1967

To be honest, I wasn't expecting much from this one. It was one an album I bought years ago because everybody talked about what a "fundamental" album it is and, of course, there was the whole Andy Warhol being involved in the cover art, and the production, so yes, basically what you're thinking: a bit of a snobbish purchase.
But other than one or two tunes, I never really got to like it too much, and thought I was going to end up writing a fairly scathing review about how overrated this one was.
And that's exactly what I thought with the first song.
But then "Waiting for my Man" started and something hit me like a ton of bricks: this is, perhaps, the first punk album in history. Definitely, it's the first one in my collection.
Of course, there's good musicianship here, unlike many punk albums, and you can tell that the unusual, and sometimes off key sounds are more experimentation than lack of talent or sheer teenage anger. But the "garage" feel of the music, the angry attitude and relatively simple structure of many of the songs, together with the lyrics, that cover topics like drug addiction, sadomasochism and prostitution, among others, set this one apart from the more standard topics of the times.
It's no surprise that the album got little to no recognition at the time. I doubt many people would have been ready for this back then. But it suddenly makes sense how this one came to be such an influential album in the years to come.
On the minus side, there's the singing. I've never been a fan of Lou Reed's singing. It's not that he has a poor vocal range (although he's not too much better than Lemmy), or that for the most part he says, rather than sing. My problem with his singing is that he sounds so damn bored the whole time. In this case, it does help the whole "proto-punk" vibe of the album, a certain indifference that contrasts the serious and sometimes disturbing topics of the lyrics.
But he's actually much better than Nico. I have no idea why she was there (other than being one of Warhol's "superstars" or something like that. I just can't stand her singing and it's cool that it's only in a couple of songs that she sings.

• It surprises me a bit that with the topics the lyrics deal with, there didn't seem to be too much going on about censorship at the time. Maybe the fact that the album wasn't too successful at the time had something to do with it. 
• "Femme Fatale" was about Edie Sedgewick, one of the best known Warhol superstars back then. She died in 1971 and is the Edie in "Edie ( Ciao Baby)" by The Cult. 
• The cover of the album, the famous drawing of a banana by Andy Warhol, originally contained a sticker, and an invitation to "Peel slowly and see". When peeling of the sticker, a second banana, this one skin coloured, was revealed. 
• "Venus in Furs" is quite a literal rendering of the novel by the same name written by Leopold Sacher-Masoch, the man after whom the word "masochism" was coined. It is an amazing and disturbing song. 
• Even though "Heroin" doesn't advocate drug use per se (it's more descriptive than apologetic), Lou Reed ended up being reluctant to play it live after he realised how many fans would come up and tell him that they shot up to the song.
• By the way, "Heroin" is based on only two chords, which led Rolling Stone magazine to say that "it doesn't take much to make a great song".

Move over, Rover, and let Jimi take over

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced - 1967

In late 1966, a struggling American R&B guitar player arrived in London with the little help of some friends, formed a band and started recording this album. The struggling guitar player would go down in history as one of the greatest guitar players of all times, and this album clearly explains why.

I'm not going to talk about Hendrix's virtues as a guitarist, many have done before, and most likely much better than I could. Also, I think you just have to hear him, there's no point in describing. 

There's one or two things I would like to say, though. One is the sheer energy in this album is simply amazing. It's raw, loud, and relentless, without losing an iota of quality. This is an album in which only three guys played: guitar, bass and drums. There's no additional musicians listed anywhere, and you wonder how just three guys managed to elicit such quality and energy.

The other thing that makes this such a great album is the variety of genres and styles: blues, rock, psychedelic, funk, jazz, you name it. It's all here, which makes this one a lot of fun to listen to time and again. 

• "Manic Depression" has an unusual time signature: it's 3/4, which is typically the tempo of waltz. But unlike other songs in that metric, the execution makes it sound somewhere between jazz and rock and it's one of my favourites here. 
• "Third Stone from the Sun" is the trippiest piece here, sounding like a mixture of jazzy improvisation, psychedelic sounds and rock, with some spoken lines here and there, some of which are slowed down and unintelligible. It's a song about... chickens. Some aliens visit our planet and figure out that the only species worth anything is the "majestic and superior cackling hen". 
• The opening track of the UK release, "Foxy Lady", has a vibe that makes me think of a very early version of the heavier, slower, style of rock that would, a few years later, be the trademark of bands like Black Sabbath. "Hey Joe", released in the US version, and later on in the CD is similar in that respect.
• The recording company Decca also rejected this album. I would have guessed they should have learned by then. 

A bit of weirdness

• This is a 1993 Dunlop tyres commercial to the sound of "Venus in Furs". It's one of the weirdest ads I have ever seen!

Random thoughts

• It's remarkably difficult to find any Hendrix's videos on YouTube. By searching a little, I found out the reason is that his estate keeps close track of all uploaded videos and removes them. The story about the legal battles over his estate is a sad one and I wonder if that's the way he would have wanted things to be.