Vintage Violence

Vintage Violence is the debut solo studio album by Welsh musician John Cale, released on 25 March 1970 by Columbia Records. Cale and Lewis Merenstein produced the album.

Vintage Violence
Studio album by
John Cale
Released25 March 1970 (1970-03-25)
Recorded1969
GenreRock, art rock
Length34:25
LabelColumbia
Producer
John Cale chronology
White Light/White Heat
(1968)		 Vintage Violence
(1970)		 Church of Anthrax
(1971)
Singles from Vintage Violence
  1. "Cleo"/"Fairweather Friend""
    Released: May 1970
  2. "Big White Cloud"/"Gideon's Bible"
    Released: November 1970

Recording

Produced for a mere $15,000, Cale stated in his autobiography What's Welsh for Zen? that there wasn't "much originality on that album, it's just someone teaching himself to do something". He also "thought the songs were simplistic". He pieced together a band to play on the album, and they named themselves Penguin. However, the band didn't last beyond the recording sessions.[1]

Content

The cover of the album features Cale with his face obscured by a glass mask over a nylon stocking, which he would later cite in his autobiography as symbolic of the content of the record: "You're not really seeing the personality".[1]

Release

Vintage Violence was released on 25 March 1970 by record label Columbia.

The album was re-released in remastered form in 2001.

Critical reception
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[2]
Christgau's Record GuideC+[3]
Entertainment WeeklyA−[4]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[5]
Spin Alternative Record Guide7/10[6]

Vintage Violence received mostly positive reviews. Rolling Stone magazine's Ed Ward said that the album sounds "like a Byrds album produced by Phil Spector who has marinated for six years in burgundy, anise and chili peppers".[7] Ward was also quoted in Billboard magazine as saying, "I believe that this is destined to become one of the most important albums of the past few years."[7]

Greil Marcus described it as "an exquisite, unheard solo album that was in some ways comparable to Van Morrison's Astral Weeks: the personal vision was that intense, the execution almost as graceful."[8]

In his retrospective review, Mark Deming of AllMusic wrote: "John Cale had the strongest avant-garde credentials of anyone in The Velvet Underground, but he was also the Velvet whose solo career was the least strongly defined by his work with the band, and [...] Vintage Violence certainly bears this out."[2]

Track listing

All tracks are written by John Cale, except where noted.

Side A
No.TitleLength
1."Hello, There"2:48
2."Gideon's Bible"3:22
3."Adelaide"2:18
4."Big White Cloud"3:31
5."Cleo"2:35
6."Please"4:19
Side B
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
7."Charlemagne" 5:03
8."Bring It on Up" 2:24
9."Amsterdam" 3:14
10."Ghost Story" 3:48
11."Fairweather Friend"Garland Jeffreys2:32
Total length:34:25
Bonus tracks on 2001 remastered CD
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
12."Fairweather Friend" (alternate version)Jeffreys2:29
13."Wall" 6:06

Personnel

Credits are adapted from the Vintage Violence liner notes.[9]

Penguin

Production

References
  1. Cale, John; Bockris, Victor (1999). What's Welsh for Zen. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 123. ISBN 0-7475-3668-6.
  2. Deming, Mark. "Vintage Violence – John Cale". AllMusic. Retrieved 28 March 2015.
  3. Christgau, Robert (1981). "C". Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies. Ticknor and Fields. ISBN 0-89919-026-X. Retrieved 23 February 2019 – via robertchristgau.com.
  4. Brunner, Rob (16 March 2001). "Vintage Violence". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 23 September 2020.
  5. Hull, Tom (2004). "John Cale". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). Simon & Schuster. pp. 131–32. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
  6. Powers, Ann (1995). "John Cale". In Weisbard, Eric; Marks, Craig (eds.). Spin Alternative Record Guide. Vintage Books. pp. 70–71. ISBN 0-679-75574-8.
  7. Ward, Ed (17 September 1970). "John Cale: Vintage Violence". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 11 February 2007. Retrieved 28 March 2015.
  8. Marcus, Greil (1993). In the Fascist Bathroom: Punk in Pop Music, 1977–1992. Penguin Books. p. 95. ISBN 0-14-014940-6.
  9. Vintage Violence (CD booklet). John Cale. Columbia Records. 1970.CS1 maint: others (link)
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