Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison and Maureen Tucker did not need to sing about the smelly town and the monstrosity of its busyness. That was expected on White Light/White Heart and it permeated between notes. This was probably the biggest slap in the face to the hippie culture, and probably the first brilliantly unlistenable classic of rock: six songs with one of them being an 8 minute long lyrics reading (The Gift), and the other one double in length, also almost like a pure reading of the text (Sister Ray).
Themes of the songs were taken from parties of city criminals, failures and marginalized groups: drugs and orgies intertwine on almost every song. The sound of guitars is close to dentist drill - cutting and emotionally distant - and it will inspire the generations of noisy kids, whether we are talking about punks from the end of the 70s, noise rock of the 80s or independent scene of the 90s. Nirvana was occasionally performing Here She Comes Now, while Peter Hook from New Order covered White Light/White Heart. It is redundant to talk about the inspiration Sonic Youth got from The Velvet Underground. Pete Shelly and Howard Devot from Buzzcocks became close due to mutual love for the song Sister Ray.
This album is not about individual songs as much as it is about the overall sound. Provocation is turned up and the whole album breaks the listener down with its nihilism and candor. Material for this album was accumulating on their concert where band had the chance to indulge in improvisations. Enormous effort and barely any response from the audience left dire ramifications on the guitarist Sterling Morrison who temporarily left the band.
According to the multi instrumentalist of the group, John Cale, the main author Lou Reed had a problem with him at the time; he even said to their manager Steve Sesnick: Either John or me. The rest of the band chose Lou Reed. On their subsequent record, Velvet Underground softened their sound, but they still remained a cult band. Reed and Cale collaborated later on, but those collabs ended up in the same way as this album - highest artistic form that sacrificed interpersonal relationships.
