I spend my time wondering (because i have too much time to spend) which velvets album is my favorite & it's really down to either this one or the banana album & i don't think there are any individual highs here as high as sunday morning or the cathartic squall at the end of heroin (except after hours maybe, or the soloing at the end of what goes on) but then candy says is a far more moving song about GENDER STUFF than walk on the wild side (not that the latter was supposed to be moving, really, so what the fuck do i know) & more importantly there's an overriding feel to this album that +nico doesn't really match WHY AM I TYPING LIKE THIS (i should add that it's about 2:30 in the morning right now and i drank nearly a whole twelve pack of coke zero tonight but this is a really good nighttime album so)
this is a nighttime album, and the debut is a morning album. the debut is for wistful decompression, and this is for post-midnite navel gazing; and the overall feeling of this album is a sort of fuzzy quilt. sterling m.'s guitar making idiosyncratic little shapes all over your ceiling. doug yule and lou carrying you off some nearly infinite golden road (fuck a sun) at the end of what goes on. beginning to see the light boiling over into ecstatic yearning on the "how does it feel to be loved" coda. and of course, mo tucker's flabbergastingly perfect signoff with after hours, in its own way one of the most triumphal affirmations ever put to wax.