Not spending the time right now to relisten to Sally Can't Dance, but I remember hearing it with my friend Suzanne right after listening to the Velvet Underground's Loaded, and we both decided that Sally was way more interesting in its use of textures. The adventure was more subtle and in different directions from the Velvets' official wildness, but there was a lot to notice. I found Lou's *singing* on Sally a problem, as if he were walking away from his old power. But in "Kill Your Sons" he dives right into the power, super-dark whine like a killer whale – kinda overdoes it, imo, almost too diving and driving, but nonetheless a great whoosh of venom. AND it's totally surpassed by "N.Y. Stars," which is the venom but softer and twice as intense, seeping into the textures, ersatz disco-funk echoing into it, too nervous for actual funk – I've heard (great sourcing there, Frank) that the words are meant as a putdown of the N.Y. Dolls, which makes Lou stupid but doesn't hurt the song, Untrustworthy lyric sites have him saying "to pay five bucks for fourth-rate imitators," which makes it a weird pronunciation at the end, "tors" getting both a syllabic emphasis that it doesn't get in normal speech and a pronunciation that's off – "tors" not the "tərs" of actual speech. But unfortunately this may nonetheless be the correct lyric; unfortunate because they way I heard it is way way better, "a fairly stupid thing, to pay five bucks for fourth-rate, imitate whores." And that's what my feelings still hear.
Xgau gave Sally a B-PLUS, which is about right. In Brad's poll, Jeremy Shatan has it on his list with 5 points. Senior year in college I took "Billy" as inspiration for a story loosely based on my friend Rob, who was being subdued by psych meds and shackled by the schizophrenia that eventually killed him. I didn't think the story worked, didn't even read it to the rest of the writing class, but I'd put it in the class folder, and my friend Georgina said it was her favorite of mine. The story was mostly just an abstract, distant account of Billy's fadeout, no actual events until it finally ends on a scene of the narrator trying to talk to Billy but not knowing how to be direct anymore so instead just talks about records. Georgina and the teacher, Seymour, were both impressed at how, in a subtle surprise, it's the narrator who turns out to be the more insane of the two.
Not spending the time right now to relisten to Sally Can't Dance, but I remember hearing it with my friend Suzanne right after listening to the Velvet Underground's Loaded, and we both decided that Sally was way more interesting in its use of textures. The adventure was more subtle and in different directions from the Velvets' official wildness, but there was a lot to notice. I found Lou's *singing* on Sally a problem, as if he were walking away from his old power. But in "Kill Your Sons" he dives right into the power, super-dark whine like a killer whale – kinda overdoes it, imo, almost too diving and driving, but nonetheless a great whoosh of venom. AND it's totally surpassed by "N.Y. Stars," which is the venom but softer and twice as intense, seeping into the textures, ersatz disco-funk echoing into it, too nervous for actual funk – I've heard (great sourcing there, Frank) that the words are meant as a putdown of the N.Y. Dolls, which makes Lou stupid but doesn't hurt the song, Untrustworthy lyric sites have him saying "to pay five bucks for fourth-rate imitators," which makes it a weird pronunciation at the end, "tors" getting both a syllabic emphasis that it doesn't get in normal speech and a pronunciation that's off – "tors" not the "tərs" of actual speech. But unfortunately this may nonetheless be the correct lyric; unfortunate because they way I heard it is way way better, "a fairly stupid thing, to pay five bucks for fourth-rate, imitate whores." And that's what my feelings still hear.
Xgau gave Sally a B-PLUS, which is about right. In Brad's poll, Jeremy Shatan has it on his list with 5 points. Senior year in college I took "Billy" as inspiration for a story loosely based on my friend Rob, who was being subdued by psych meds and shackled by the schizophrenia that eventually killed him. I didn't think the story worked, didn't even read it to the rest of the writing class, but I'd put it in the class folder, and my friend Georgina said it was her favorite of mine. The story was mostly just an abstract, distant account of Billy's fadeout, no actual events until it finally ends on a scene of the narrator trying to talk to Billy but not knowing how to be direct anymore so instead just talks about records. Georgina and the teacher, Seymour, were both impressed at how, in a subtle surprise, it's the narrator who turns out to be the more insane of the two.