Released
in October of 1967, the debut solo LP by Nico, Chelsea Girl, is marking
its 55th anniversary this month. Coming on after her involvement with
the debut Velvet Underground album & Exploding Plastic Inevitable
tour, Chelsea Girl is a rather skewed representation of the chanteuse as
an artist, offering her little creative input for the album while
obscuring her presence with distracting and unwanted musical elements.
After
recording and touring with the VU in 1966 and early 1967, Nico moved to
New York City and took up residence in a coffeehouse as a solo folk
performer, often accompanied by Jackson Brown or various rotating VU
members on guitar. When the proposition of a solo album for the German
native loomed, her accompanists set about contributing songs for her to
sing, with Brown, Lou Reed, John Cale and even Bob Dylan offering
material. Nico only got a single writing credit for It Was A Pleasure
Then. Production was handled by Tom Wilson, who despite Nico’s
assertions, refused to use any drums or bass on the album and, without
her knowledge or consent, added overdubs of strings and flute, much to
the singer’s dismay. She is quoted as saying,
“I still cannot
listen to it, because everything I wanted for that record, they took it
away. I asked for drums, they said no. I asked for more guitars, they
said no. And I asked for simplicity, and they covered it in flutes! ...
They added strings and – I didn't like them, but I could live with them.
But the flute! The first time I heard the album, I cried and it was all
because of the flute.”
Stylistically, the album ended up landing
somewhere between chamber folk and baroque pop. Critics have, in turn,
praised it as a “masterpiece”, on one hand, and as having been
“sabotaged”, as Trouser Press would eventually decry. Personally, I
find it mostly enjoyable and listenable, but not particularly
representative of what she’d eventually create with such monolithic
& somber albums as The Marble Index, Desertshore & The End.
