MGM Records never seemed to know just what to make of
the Velvet Underground. In 1967 and 1968 the pioneering New York band released two remarkable but poor-selling albums for
MGM's
Verve subsidiary, and in 1969 they were shuffled over to the main label, which lost interest after their more accessible third LP failed to make it on radio.
MGM dropped
the Velvets, and the group released its final studio album, 1970's
Loaded, for the
Atlantic-backed
Cotillion label. Given that the very clean-cut
Cowsills were
MGM's cash cow act in the late '60s, it's no wonder
Lou Reed's druggy and decadent visions were a bit much for the company. But when
Loaded began earning positive press and a smattering of radio play,
MGM saw a chance to finally make back a bit of their investment, and in the summer of 1970 they released
Golden Archive Series, part of a series of similarly packed compilations, which became the first
VU "greatest-hits" album. (Other artists featured in the
Golden Archive Series included
Janis Ian,
Wayne Newton,
Tim Hardin,
Connie Francis,
Ian & Sylvia, and of course
the Cowsills.) Given that
Golden Archive Series was a cut-rate reissue tossed out with about three dozen similar albums at the same time, it's a welcome surprise that it's a pretty good sampler of
the Velvet Underground's tenure with
Verve/
MGM. The album leans to the group's gentler side, as embodied by songs like "Sunday Morning," "Candy Says," and "Here She Comes Now," but "Heroin" and "White Light/White Heat" are on hand to represent their more challenging work, and the LP offers up fine tunes from all three
MGM-controlled albums, making it a decent introductory sampler.
MGM would release a few other
VU collections (including the laziest compilation ever, 1974's
Archetypes, which simply packaged
White Light/White Heat in a new sleeve) before
Polygram gained control of
MGM's catalog and the floodgates truly opened. But
Golden Archive Series was not just
MGM's first stab at reexamining
the Velvet Underground's first three albums, it was a fine collection that demonstrated just how diverse and listenable the band could really be, a notion that wasn't exactly conventional wisdom at the time. ~ Mark Deming