Velvet Underground - Squeeze

The 'Velvet Underground's' Squeeze is a very curious listen indeed. Made after all the original band members had departed in differing directions and for different reasons leaving Doug Yule, who had joined the band on the departure of John Cale, as defacto leader, it's essentially a Yule solo record finding him backed by a series of musicians including Willie Loco Alexander and Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice. Released in February 1973 it has been the subject of  the greatest imaginable scorn ever since, most obviously aimed at Yule.

This seems slightly unfair to me, listening to it now. It's a well produced, sung and played album that has some spirit of its own though it's just most obviously not The Velvet Underground even if it doesn't half try to be. Most obviously, it's a blatant attempt to reframe Loaded, the last real Velvet's album before dissolution which Yule himself made a particularly notable contribution to. Sometimes its efforts to ape that record's sound and feel are vaguely comic as with final track Louise's acapella fade out which come as a shame because up to then it's probably the album's best. Listened to on its own terms though the record is an amiable listen.

Yule is not content just to plunder his old band members' back catalogue. In opening track Little Jack the 'woo woos from the Stone's Sympathy for The Devil are shamelessly appropriated for the song's requirements. Elsewhere Yule oddly shows a particular fondness and debt to Paul McCartney's more fanciful melodic narratives from the late Beatles records, 

Most often though the album is an attempt to revivify and reconstitute departed ghosts. Yule's efforts to try to front it as a more innocent and wholesome Reed figure, though still 'street' are doomed from the off. The record ultimately fails because it tries to trade on Reed's persona. Although there are moments when you think Squeeze captures something of Loaded's languid charm, the moment only lasts until you realise once again that this is not Reed, Morrison or Tucker, and Yule, much as he may have contributed to those late Velvet's records is still not sufficiently entitled to attempt to lift their moves quite so blatantly for his own purposes. He should have tried to walk his own path.

It's a pity really. The record listened to on its own is fine, it's only because it's inevitably judged from its context that its been found so wanting both at the time and historically. Occasionally, as I've said you hear echoes of Candy Says, She's My Best Friend  and Who Loves The Sun for example and it's always a pleasure to get these reminders. There's very little sense of sequence or build to the record as a whole however, and Yule shows himself rather more competent in terms of putting songs together that maintain a warm, chugging feel than getting across much personality through his lyrics and vocal projection. It's perfectly clear that he's spent time diligently taking notes at the master's knee.

By the time Yule drawls 'Jack and Jane well they were quite insane, but do you think that I really care...' in Jack & Jane you may have had your fill. Puh-lease! The album cannot sustain the front. It's essentially an act of bad faith. Still, it's by no means a dreadful record and I personally  think doesn't deserve its shocking reputation. Here and here are two further evaluations of this great Rock and Roll curiosity with a deeper exploration of its back story.