However, the run down of the RYM Top 100 continues and next in line is The Velvet Underground's second LP, White Light/White Heat from 1968. This record is found a bit further down the list, around many of the other more experimental records that resides on the list. White Light/White Heat came out the year after the groups debut, after which the commercial failure of The Velvet Underground & Nico had led Andy Warhol to leave the band alone aswell as Nico deciding to part ways with the band. It was a troublesome time for the band where they weren't quite sure of what they wanted to do and internal conflicts between John Cale and Lou Reed were at hands, leaving Cale to finally leave the band after the album had been recorded.
White Light/White Heat is often considered the birthplace of noise rock and atleast one of the first noise rock records out there, marking the most experimental turning point for the band. The record has a pair of fairly orthodox songs that don't feel too far from what the band was doing on the debut, but it also experiments in tecnique and songwriting, having a 10-minute spoken word song as the second track, where panning is used to separate the vocals completely from the instrumentals. The Gift tells the silly story of Waldo Jeffers who decides to mail himself to his long distance girlfriend to avoid having to pay for travel. While neither spoken word or the use of panning is particulary experimental in todays alternative rock music, it was weird and unorthodox back in 68, when the radio played The Beatles and the alternative crowd listened to Progressive Rock.
White Light/White Heat is a staple in music history and a heavily influential record, maybe the most essential, when it comes to noise rock as a genre. It wasn't the record that gave the band the commercial success that the debut failed to find but it might be the band, and the members of the band's biggest mark upon musical history, shaping the direction and ideas of many bands and albums to come in the years after.
I definitely think its an essential when it comes to noise rock and music in general, one of the many records on this list that should be heard by anyone only to be able to appreciate its historical importance. While noise rock usually is seen as a notoriously "difficult" genre, White Light/White Heat combines simple experimentation with accessible songs and song structures, not too far from what you'd find on the self-titled debut making it a perfect entry point into a vast genre with huge differences from band to band and album to album.
White Light/White Heat closes of with one of the most well known songs of the bands career, the 17-minute Sister Ray which would come to be a staple and one of the biggest influence on many of the japanese noise rock bands that were to emerge during the 70's, bands like Fushitsusha and Les Rallizes Denudes playing songs in a similar manner, with heavy use of improvisation and enormous amounts of guitar feedback. When you listen to modern noise rock, or even the successors to The Velvet Underground, you'll rarely find tracks like the albums title track or even Lady Godiva's Operation but instead sounding like the enormous Sister Ray which is what marks the most important part of the influence of White Light/White Heat.
I'm a huge fan of The Velvet Underground so I might be biased after all but this is one of the records you need to hear from this list. Not only is its historical influence important to know and have experienced for any fan of music but it's also a great record that doesn't take all that much to fully comprehend and can be, in my opinion, enjoyed by almost anyone with atleast a curiousty for experimentation.
White Light/White Heat [1968]
The Velvet Underground
8.5
Anton Öberg Sysojev
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