Condition: Brand New Ships from: Melbourne

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• After The Velvet Underground cut three albums for the jazz-oriented Verve label that earned them lots of notoriety but negligible sales, the group signed with industry powerhouse Atlantic Records in 1970.

  Label head Ahmet Ertegun supposedly asked Lou Reed to avoid sex and drugs in his songs, and instead focus on making an album “loaded with hits.” Loaded was the result. It was the group’s swan song, with Reed leaving the group shortly before its release. With John Cale long gone from the band, Doug Yule highly prominent (he sings lead on four of the ten tracks), and Maureen Tucker absent on maternity leave, this is hardly a purist’s Velvet Underground album. Still, AllMusic gives the album 5 Stars and Pitchfork calls it a “perfect rock ‘n’ roll record 40 minutes long, f