3 ms·

I'm not sure I accept your premise here. I've spent years of my life listening to the Velvets and I'm also fond of many traditionally "virtuosic" artists. And

I'm not sure I accept your premise here. I've spent years of my life listening to the Velvets and I'm also fond of many traditionally "virtuosic" artists. And I don't really make a huge distinction between them. The first Velvets album doesn't feel like anything about it was diminished by the musicianship. (I wish I could play that badly!) Also let's not forget John Cale was classical trained, and was probably the biggest proponent of "noise" in the band.

HDThoreaun 3y ago
I don't think noise and bad musicianship are so tightly linked like your comment seems to say. Big Black made that very clear, and we've only seen more well played noise since then. I think the first velvet record was an incredible visionary piece of art, I also think it would be better if the entire underground was as talented as Cale clearly is on the record. Nico especially is incredibly off putting.
- andybak 3y ago
  > I think noise and bad musicianship are so tightly linked like your comment seems to say. I don't think I was intending to say that - or if I did it was meant to be echoing back what you were implying except with big scare quotes around it. Nico was quite charming on the first Velvets album and her Desert Shore is close to a masterpiece.