"The Closet Mix"
I would like to speak today about the intersection of intimacy and technology. Before the last two words of that sentence even got out of my mouth, I felt an anxiety creeping into the periphery that is one we all probably share: Technology has fully invaded the interior of us, it has colonized, balkanized intimacy. I don’t think I need to say more about that; we (most of us) perseverate enough about it already.
But what if we say, instead, that technology has only shown us where the fence of intimacy is? Because over yonder on the other side, there is still and there will always be the physical — where, to really go to the really real, we still have to manipulate actual IRL tools to make the intimate actual. There is sex, of course, and there are hugs, but there is also manipulating the body to express, to publicly address, to dance, to speak, to sing.
Before the invention and subsequent pairing of multi-track recording and the studio-quality microphone, singers had to do what they could to be heard over their accompanying instruments. And I don’t just mean in, say, the early jazz era; I mean back to Captain Caveman times. Maybe you stood way out in front of the band; maybe you used one of those cone things you can buy on Etsy; maybe you just belted like a motherfucker until the band had the good taste to meet you somewhere in the middle.
But you couldn’t whisper in your vocalizations, and you couldn’t quite sing in the same type of voice that would be able to use if, say, you were just in a small room with some friends and wanted to sing to them about maybe what you really felt and maybe what was on your mind.
Until one day in the middle of the 20th Century. And then, you could. And that potential blew singing wide open, in such a profound and open way that we are still experimenting with what we can do with microphones. It showed us, as our hero on this record puts it, that, between thought and expression, there lies a lifetime.
You hold in your hands the “The Closet Mix” of the Velvet Underground’s self-titled third album. It’s an alternate mix that Lou Reed oversaw, but not the one that was released at the time, and not the one that most people know. But this is the one that has my heart, and lots of other folks’ too, because the entire project is an exercise in using technology to assist/simulate/elevate a level of artistic intimacy. Lou’s vocals are pushed way out in front. The band’s performances are mixed with a minimum of noise. Each thing stands on its own but works in tandem with the other. It is as direct as a prayer in your head.
And it’s probably the truest version of the album no matter what mix of it you’re listening to. Legend has it that this record sounds the way it does because the Velvets had all their instruments stolen just before they were to go into the studio to record it. It’s disputed, but it makes sense.
Other weirdnesses abound: With both Nico and John Cale having faded into the distance in the time period leading up to the recording, Lou has new doppelgangers that do a kind of ventriloquism that’s more subtle and more affecting all at the same time. When Doug Yule steps in for “Candy Says” on side one, track one, he’s doing something Lou could never quite do: Sing like Lou, but pretty. Moe Tucker bookends it on the equally iconic “After Hours,” doing another thing Lou could never do, either: Sweet, aching comedy in the voice of a ‘30s gangster film gun moll.
In between, you hear everything that Lou could do, and it’s epic. The Velvet Underground contains some of his most towering songs, songs that do more than approach literature; they’ve become it.
The version of “Some Kinda Love” presented here is a different take entirely from the more widely known version of the album, and maybe gets to the heart of what The Closet Mix is all about. On headphones especially, here’s a song that scans as interior monologue as much as it’s also a fantastic musical performance. This entire suite of songs has always been regarded as a creative high point of Reed’s songwriting, but The Closet Mix also might be the high point of his singing career as well. On “Some Kinda Love” — as well as “Pale Blue Eyes” and “Jesus” — Lou goes high, he goes Lou, he coos and purrs. It might be the most liberated his voice ever got. And it’s all on display on these two sides.
You may well already know this record. Some of us know it, recognize it, as a kind of humanist gospel, and it has at least in some small part informed the way we move through this world either as artists or people or both. What “The Closet Mix” offers is a different window into it, one that’s just different enough to cast it into a different light, a photo filter that, for once, isn’t cheesy. That’s closer to the real thing. So close in fact, it has to be. Mirages don’t happen up close.
— Joey Sweeney
Note: These words originally appeared as the liner notes for the 48 Record Bar Record Of The Month for January 2024. To learn more about our ROTM program, click here.