Notes: The 1997 Fully Loaded reissue contains “the original Loaded album, with full-length versions of ‘Sweet Jane,’ ‘Rock & Roll,’ and ‘New Age’ replacing the earlier edited ones. …The rest of the two-disc, 33-track set is comprised of alternate mixes, alternate takes, and demos of the ten Loaded songs, as well as some songs that the group recorded during the Loaded era that didn't make it onto that LP. Some of this rare extraneous material surfaced on the Peel Slowly and See box, but a good half of this (17 tracks) was previously unreleased anywhere. Basically, it presents an entirely alternate version of the album… [although] many of the alternate takes/mixes are only subtly different. …‘Love Makes You Feel Ten Feet Tall’ [is] the one song on this set that has been previously unreleased by the Velvets in any way, shape, or form (although Lou Reed would do it on his first album as ‘Love Makes You Feel’)” (Unterberger).
Awards:
Loaded
Velvet Underground
Review:
“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, and with appropriate irony it turned out to be the first VU album that made any noticeable impact on commercial radio — and also their 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. But while Lou Reed always wrote great rock & roll songs with killer hooks, on Loaded his tunes were at last given a polished but intelligent production that made them sound like the hits they should have been, and there's no arguing that Sweet Jane and Rock and Roll are as joyously anthemic as anything he's ever recorded. And if this release generally maintains a tight focus on the sunny side of the VU's personality (or would that be Reed's personality?), New Age and Oh! Sweet Nuthin' prove he had hardly abandoned his contemplative side, and Train Around the Bend is a subtle but revealing metaphor for his weariness with the music business. Sterling Morrison once said of Loaded, ‘It showed that we could have, all along, made truly commercial sounding records,’ but just as importantly, it proved they could do so without entirely abandoning their musical personality in the process. It's a pity that notion hadn't occurred to anyone a few years earlier” (Deming).
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