Who may make Lou Reed appear to be Brian Wilson, flip the pump organ right into a rock instrument, and convey The Doorways’ darkest visions to an much more apocalyptic place? No one however Nico. Born Christa Paffgen in Cologne, Germany, she was a movie actor, recording artist, and profitable mannequin earlier than she ever emigrated to the US and got here into the orbit of Andy Warhol. He masterminded the short-lived however legendary partnership between Nico and his avant-rock fees The Velvet Underground, however she went on to an uncompromising solo profession that broke much more guidelines than the VU’s convention-shattering dispatches from past rock’s outer limits.
Together with her androgynous vocal model and her scorched-earth coverage in the direction of conventional music construction, Nico was “No Wave” years earlier than the time period was coined. A complete slew of subversive subgenres together with post-punk and goth are indebted to her. From the autumnal baroque-pop of her 1967 solo debut, Chelsea Woman, to the suave abstraction of the John Cale-produced The Marble Index and past, Nico hammered out a haunting, hypnotic string of cult classics. However her profession was minimize tragically quick when a 1988 accident introduced her troubled life to an premature conclusion.
It’s difficult to pinpoint the perfect entry level into the Nico catalog, a physique of labor as complicated as it’s commanding. As a substitute of narrowing it right down to a single spot, listed here are 20 of the very best Nico songs that traverse the whole spectrum of the German iconoclast’s unflagging assault on creative complacency.
The Velvet Underground
(Femme Fatale, I’ll Be Your Mirror, All Tomorrow’s Events)
When Warhol foisted Nico on The Velvet Underground as their chanteuse-in-residence, the band initially bristled. But it surely’s not possible to argue with the recorded outcomes, that are restricted to the group’s timeless debut, The Velvet Underground & Nico. As reluctant as Lou Reed had been to cede lead vocal duties to Nico on the three tracks she steers, time has confirmed she was the right match. With a supply suggesting she suffers no fools, the husky-toned singer appears to personify the intimidating character she describes in “Femme Fatale.” If “I’ll Be Your Mirror had been sung in Reed’s comparatively youthful-sounding tones at the time, the dewy ballad might have had considerably less gravitas than it’s given by Nico’s cello-pitched pipes. And the gloriously doomy decadence of “All Tomorrow’s Parties” nonetheless feels inseparable from her cool Teutonic croon.
Cowl Songs
(These Days, I’ll Maintain It With Mine, The Finish)
Nico’s first album was nearly fully written by others, together with her VU bandmates. It additionally included “These Days,” by one in every of her many suitors and occasional accompanist Jackson Browne, nonetheless in his teenagers on the time. He wouldn’t file it himself till years later, however in 1967 its world-weariness was certainly higher suited to Nico, 10 years his senior and much more skilled. She additionally had early dibs on former paramour Bob Dylan’s “I’ll Keep It With Mine.” Although first minimize by Judy Collins, the compassion-baked ballad is alleged to have been written for and about Nico, and she or he inhabits it with an intimacy that makes a robust case for that origin story.
After Chelsea Woman, Nico centered on her personal materials, however her actual tour de drive in cowl tune territory got here in 1974 along with her model of The Doorways’ “The End” from her album of the identical title. With VU bandmate John Cale doing unspeakable issues to a piano and Roxy Music’s Phil Manzanera serving up some sinister licks, Nico picks up the place Jim Morrison (yet one more former flame) left off, kicking up the fire-and-brimstone issue a number of notches and establishing a template that Nick Cave, and others, would sooner or later embrace.
Harmonium-Fueled Hits
(Janitor of Lunacy, It Has Not Taken Lengthy, Konig)
Nothing as standard as guitar or piano for Nico – as a substitute she spun most of her songs behind a harmonium. The Nineteenth-century creation is actually a conveyable pump organ, with a bewitching, serpentine sound. It involves the fore on a few of Nico’s most haunting tunes. “Janitor of Lunacy” from 1970’s Desertshore is a prayer for sanctuary from an absurd destiny, reportedly recorded in response to the latest loss of life of Nico’s pal Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones. With its roiling, incantatory really feel, it grew to become one in every of her signature songs.
In the meantime, the charming “It Has Not Taken Long” from The Finish runs on a repetitive harmonium riff atop what feels like a cross between a beating coronary heart and a skipping file. Sung in Nico’s native tongue, the voice-and-harmonium solo “Konig” (German for “king”) from 1985’s Digicam Obscura contrasts drastically with John Cale’s electronic-oriented manufacturing on many of the album, displaying the hoary previous instrument nonetheless had a spot within the singer’s coronary heart.
New Wave Nico
(Genghis Khan, One Extra Likelihood, Win a Few, Fearfully in Hazard)
When Nico embraced a New Wave-tinged sound within the 80s it was extra a case of the zeitgeist lastly catching up with the “alternative” pioneer than the reverse. On 1981’s Drama of Exile, the post-punk guitar and nearly danceable groove of “Genghis Khan” and the Bowie-in-Berlin vibe of “One More Chance” eased the now even deeper-voiced singer into the ears of a brand new technology. When John Cale reclaimed the producer’s chair for the aforementioned Digicam Obscura, Nico’s gloomy gravitas was offset by a foreshadowing of 90s electronica on “Win a Few” and a minimal, however insistent, synth-pop framework for “Fearfully in Danger.”
Otherworldly Explorations
(Lawns of Daybreak, Night of Mild, We’ve Received the Gold)
John Cale was seemingly born to provide Nico. Her radical works plunged the dagger into your psyche and his preparations gave the blade simply the precise twist. Alongside the way in which, they solid deliciously nightmarish visions on a few of her most interesting albums. On 1968’s The Marble Index, “Lawns of Dawn” seems like being trapped inside a carnivalesque music field, whereas “Evening of Light” begins out easy and serene and steadily builds to a cataclysmic uproar. On The Finish…, “We’ve Got the Gold” begins out sounding like a complete band detuning without delay and solely will get eerier from there.
Poignant Performances
(My Solely Baby, Afraid, My Humorous Valentine, The Fairest of the Seasons)
Conversely, Cale was additionally able to bringing out the unabashed magnificence in Nico’s music. On Desertshore, her voice joins the concord singers with a putting tenderness within the almost a cappella “My Only Child,” apparently impressed by her younger son, Ari, whose voice seems on the next monitor and whose picture adorns the album cowl. The piano-led drawing-room ballad “Afraid” from the identical album, additionally bears sufficient delicate poignancy to deliver a tear to the attention.
Nico’s most conventionally “pretty” efficiency pops up surprisingly amid the digital adventures of Digicam Obscura when she comes off like a countercultural Marlene Dietrich on a quiet, cabaret-ready model of Rodgers & Hart’s “My Funny Valentine.” However the potential was there from the start, when her debut LP kicked off with the beforehand unrecorded Jackson Browne tune “The Fairest of the Seasons,” a bittersweet ballad that may very well be learn on reflection as portending Nico and Browne’s love affair.
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