9. The Velvet UndergroundThe Velvet Underground
This is my favorite Velvet Underground record. I can listen and see myself lying on my bed when I’m a teenager and experiencing heartbreaks for the first time. When I was younger, I always preferred the soppiest stuff – ‘Pale Blue Eyes’ and stuff. Then I rediscovered it a few years ago when I was away with my partner. He played me this song ‘Over You’ [included as a live recording on the 45th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition in 2014] which totally recontextualised everything. Suddenly you’re in your bedroom, and you’re 16, then you’re driving around this Caribbean island, which is not where the Velvet Underground usually sits. I’m just having so many flashbacks to moments of my life in regards to them. Being drunk with friends, going back to someone’s house after and – this might sound really wanky – but you’re all sat around a table hitting stuff, strumming guitar, someone’s playing the harmonica, and someone’s doing some silly Lou Reed line over the top. It’s the kind of music that people have tried to recreate, and you can’t do it well, but to play it with your friends is really fun.
Everyone will say this, but they’ve informed so much of what I do musically, from songs that I would write when I was a kid to the way that I would make a record now. It’s the kind of music that encourages people that aren’t classically trained, that don’t consider themselves musicians, to play. I could list all the ways that it’s influential. And also, as I say, I’m not a producer, but it makes me think that I could produce a record in a really encouraging way.
