“Oh! Sweet Nuthin'” by The Velvet Underground

"Oh! Sweet Nuthin'" is a Lou Reed song that Lou Reed doesn't sing. On Loaded, the Velvet Underground's fourth album, issued in 1970 on Atlantic's Cotillion imprint, the lead vocal goes to Doug Yule, who also plays bass, with Billy Yule on drums and Reed and Sterling Morrison working the electric guitars. Geoffrey Haslam and Shel Kagan produced it, with Haslam and Adrian Barber engineering.

The whole record was the band's stab at handing Atlantic some hits, and none came. Reed walked out shortly before it hit the shops, which makes this about the last word from the Velvets that many fans still count as the real thing. Loaded had to wait for its reputation, but it got one: Rolling Stone later placed it on its 500 greatest albums list, in 2012 and again in 2020.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.