Throwing in a cent:
I always seen VU in two seperate chapters (Ignoring the post-scrpit that's Squeeze), The Warhol/Cale days and NYC's best Rock band. I love the first two albums, but I will also highly respect the S/T and Loaded. It's very tough to seperate VU from it's Warhol era, especially when there's two strong albums that define the era that went onto spark so much more, but I can see where the sound had to change after that. The sad thing was that there was so much in the industry against the band that it would have took a very long time to rise up from that - And in The 60's being known as "The Heorin Band" was enough for so much happening behind the scenes, especially with Distribution of the records, to halt any kind of progress beyond the small rave here and there.
It's easy to see where Lou was aiming for a far more accessable style with Loaded, but the band did it in their own way. The Street-Smart visioin was still there and even if it was a little more laid back, the killer music instinct was still there. It certainly was no compromise, and in the end something to be applauded. Time and fate changes many things, but in the end it all boils down to how the changes are done.
...and, in a more trivial note that still kind of important, Mitch Ryder's version of "Rock and Roll" for the cool debut album of Detroit was among the first VU covers, and it's notice on FM radio in The States (Where I was at, I could not escape it...thankfully!) was very strong and some of the more interested took note about the band Lou Reed was once in.
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