Loaded: Re-Loaded 45th Anniversary Edition will follow in the footsteps and format of the deluxe sets previously released by UMe for the VU’s first three albums The Velvet Underground and Nico,White Light/White Heat, and The Velvet Underground. This 6-disc box will feature:
- The original 1970 album remastered in both its stereo and mono mixes;
- Demos, singles, early versions and alternate takes from the Loaded era;
- A previously unreleased Philadelphia concert from May 1970 featuring seven songs fromLoaded;
- A newly-remastered and re-edited version of Live at Max’s Kansas City containing tracks from the original 1972 album plus selections from Rhino’s expanded 2004 edition; and
- Stereo and surround mixes of the original Loaded album on DVD.
By the time of the original release of Loaded on Atlantic Records’ Cotillion imprint in November 1970, Lou Reed had already departed The Velvet Underground. But the album contains some of his most beloved songs for the band including “Sweet Jane” and “Rock and Roll.” With the increased participation of Doug Yule (including on the lead vocals on four songs) and without the credited Maureen Tucker, who was pregnant at the time of the album’s recording, Loaded has a very different – and unabashedly commercially-oriented – feel than its predecessors in the group’s catalogue. (VU guitarist Sterling Morrison does play on the record. Guest drummers including Doug Yule’s brother Billy subbed for Tucker.)
In 1997, Rhino Records released the Fully Loaded 2-CD reissue, with 23 outtakes, demos and alternate mixes. This release forms the basis of the additional material on Disc Three of Re-Loaded, with the outtakes appended to Disc One and the single versions (including two previously unreleased mono single mixes) on Disc Two. Note that, per Rhino, for the surround and stereo downmix on the DVD, the original album track listing has been slightly re-sequenced to include the segue originally planned for “I Found a Reason/Head Held High.” The press release also indicates that the album’s surround mix (the first surround release for the Velvets) will be playable in DTS and Dolby Digital.
