Track Listing

1. It Has Not Taken Long
2. Secret Side
3. You Forgot To Answer
4. Innocent And Vain
5. Valley Of The Kings
6. We've Got The Gold
7. The End
8. Das Lied Der Deutschen

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16676 in Music
• Released on: 2007-03-19
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 42 minutes

Customer Reviews

The ultimate gothic album
An experimental mixture of electronic noise, haunting vocals, and surreal lyrics that somehow comes together to create a masterpiece of subtle, timeless, but desperately emotional music.

Its hard to listen to Nico's work without placing it in the context of her life and death, but this steps outside all that and simply stands alone on its own merit.

Once you've heard this anything else that claims to be 'gothic' simply fails miserably.

Its beautiful, poetic, savage, and very dark, and it leaves you feeling vulnerable, enchanted, and totally spaced out.

The end, my friend
Ex-Velvet Underground singer Nico was one of the most entrancing pop singers of the 20th century. And the most enigmatic. In "The End," Nico put her talents to use in a series of dark, dreamlike songs that center on death, loneliness, despair and capture.

It opens on a note that sounds almost whimsical, like a xylophone being stroked. Pretty, and a bit delicate... until you realize that Nico is singing ominously about hunters, swords and bleeding. The next few songs have a more stately musical sound, and tend to focus more on typical pop problems, like lovers who don't listen.

But that vaguely savage element comes back in in the synthy organ ballad "Innocent and Vain," where she sings, "I am a savage violator/A valet innocent and vain." But the oddest track is also best -- Nico does a defiant cover of the Doors' "The End," which may be even better than the original. Her smoky, eerie style turns Jim Morrison's opus into a beautiful sonic nightmare.

One would think that after a band like the Velvet Underground, there would be no place to go but down. Surprisingly, Nico does far better as a solo artist than she did with the legendary Lou Reed-led band -- they tend to be slower, thicker and darker.

Nico's vocals really shouldn't be as good as they are -- she rarely lifted herself out of her thickly-accented monotone, and tended to sing as if she didn't want to bother. However, there's a strange allure to her singing style, which manages to rescue mediocre songwriting like, "We've got the gold, we do not seem too old." Whatever that means.

Nico also played the harmonium, backed by Eno's synths and her ex-bandmate John Cale who played... well, quite a few instruments, including the xylophone, glockenspiel, piano and more synth. This tangle of instrumentation makes the music sound rich, twisty and almost orchestral, but with more darkness and flexibility.

Nico's own end came far too soon, but her beautiful "End" is still with us. Definitely worth checking out.

Bizarre, austere, beautiful
This album is thoroughly bleak, and yet strangely enchanting. The austere minimalism of the vocal and harmonium parts gives it an almost medieval feel (it has the sort of gloomy beauty found in Gregorian chant) - but this is counterbalanced perfectly with an ambient backdrop by Brian Eno and John Cale (who produced the album). The combination of these two musical elements gives the album a unique and modern sound, so different from anything else you've ever heard that it will never date. If you are depressed by bleak music, avoid this album - but if you like your beauty on the stark side, but it now!