Anyone who has read this blog for a while knows that I take an almost perverse delight in declaring albums that critics and the public have written off as garbage to be "lost classics" or at least more worthwhile than is usually assumed. So you might expect me to declare Squeeze, the 1973 album by the Lou Reed-less, Doug Yule-led Velvet Underground, to be a minor masterpiece. Not this time. Squeeze is not a lost masterpiece. It's the kind of garbage that deserves to be forgotten, only it can't quite be because it turns up in the discography of one of the greatest rock and roll bands of all time. It's a putrid footnote to an otherwise nearly flawless band's career.Apparently some believe Squeeze deserves a second listen (from Wikipedia):
Due to perceived middle of the road content, Squeeze is sometimes dismissed out of hand by Velvet Underground fans. However, with the advent of Internet audio file sharing, the previously obscure record has gained some supporters, who speculate that Squeeze might have fared far better if it had been promoted not as a V.U. album, but as Yule's solo debut, with some arguing that some of the songs would not have been out of place on Loaded.
First of all, I would point out that Squeeze was not promoted as a Doug Yule solo album, it was promoted--in the most exploitative manner imaginable (with cover art and type script that recalled Loaded no less)--as a Velvet Underground album. There is a very good reason for this: no one was interested in a freakin' Doug Yule solo album. Doug Yule could not have gotten a record deal, even in the UK, if he had opted to release this under the name "The Doug Yule Experience." Yule and sleazeball Velvet's manager Steve Sesnick decided to "squeeze" a few extra bucks out of the Velvet Underground name by foisting a fraud onto the public. The fact that Sesnick was the driving force behind this (and the guy who made off with the advance money) does not absolve Yule of his share of the blame. This is not the same thing as Arthur Lee releasing sub-par "Love" records with himself as the only original member. (A better comparison would be if Frank Fayad or Noony Rickett tried to release a "Love" album.) Lee had both the legal and moral authority to release anything he wanted under the Love moniker. Yule and Sesnick had the legal right to do whatever they wanted with the Velvet's name, and what they chose to do was sleazy and dishonest.
But for the sake of argument, let's pretend that we can set aside the inherently insulting nature of a Velvet Underground album with no original Velvets playing on it (we can't, but let's pretend). Would this album have fared better with critics if it had been released as a Doug Yule solo album? Perhaps, but it wouldn't make the music on the album any better, and for the most part the music really stinks. Lou Reed made good use of Doug Yule's soulless choirboy voice on the last two Velvets albums, but while the voice here is familiar, the material lacks the startling tension between Reed's razor sharp lyrics and the blandness of Yule's delivery. Hearing Yule sing "Candy says, I've come to hate my body, and all that it requires in this world" was chilling, but hearing him sing "Everybody knows you used to dance the hoochie-coo, just can't shake it like you used to do" (as he does on "Louise") is literally painful.I will grant you, the best of the songs on the album ("Friends," "She'll Make You Cry," "Caroline") might not have sounded entirely out of place on Loaded, but they certainly would have stood out as the worst track on that album. And the rest of the songs ("Louise," "Little Jack," "Crash," "Dopey Joe," etc.) would have been unlikely to make the cut on a Mr. Mister album. The majority of the material is just plain bad.
"Caroline" is one of the few tolerable songs on the album, and has the most direct link to the sound of the classic band. Even so, the track is borderline insulting with it's Lou Reed-like backing vocals (possibly provided by Deep Purple's Ian Paice) and Lou Reed-lite hipster lyrics. "Louise" on the other hand is an outright travesty, and more typical of the poor quality of the material contained on the album.
Is this one of the worst albums ever made? No. But no amount of revisionist history can redeem it. Doug Yule and Steve Sesnick deserve to spend eternity in rock and roll hell (a place where you can only hear Pat Boone's version of "Tutti Frutti") for foisting such a monumental fraud on the public.
