![]() Other tracks are revolutionary in a different way – by blending experimental rock with the spoken word. On title track White Light/White Heat, a crunching bass cuts through a wall of distorted guitars, emerging at the end of the song as the sole survivor, while Moe Tucker’s drums are reduced to a swirling, crashing noise. Guitar greats such as Robbie Robertson would queue around the block to see Reed play, only to be disappointed by his perceived lack of “technique”. I Heard Her Call My Name contains, according to rock magazine Crawdaddy’s Wayne McGuire, “one of the most highly-charged moments ever heard in music” and features some of the most extreme guitar soloing of all time. ![]() He famously persuaded them to adopt German actress and model Nico as a singer, and funded their first LP, The Velvet Underground and Nico, released the previous year. Featuring film screenings, fetish dancing and light shows, EPI was one of the first “happenings” – and Warhol placed the Velvet Underground at the centre of each event. In reality, Warhol’s “management” of the group meant using them for his Exploding Plastic Inevitable (EPI) – a series of multimedia events across America. But it was White Light/White Heat that best anticipated the end of the hippy dream. Fifty years on, two music LPs from 1968 especially sum up Axelrod’s stark monochrome vision: The Beatles White Album, and White Light/White Heat, the second album from The Velvet Underground, the New York cult rock group previously managed by pop artist Andy Warhol. After the optimistic psychedelia of the previous year, events took a harsh turn as assassinations, riots and war unfolded on TV screens across the globe. Veteran CNN reporter David Axelrod recently described 1968 as a time of “ chaos in black and white”.
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