The End (Nico album)

Infobox Album | Name = The End
Type = Album
Artist = Nico


Released = 1974
Recorded = 1973
Sound Techniques Ltd., London
Genre = Proto-neofolk
Length = 42:02
Producer = John Cale
Label = Island Records
Reviews = *Allmusic Rating|4.5|5 [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:diazefwkhgf6 link]
Last album = "Desertshore"
(1970)
This album = "The End..."
(1974)
Next album = "June 1, 1974"
(1974)

"The End" is an album by Nico, released in 1974. The album is titled "The End..." on the cover. It was her fourth release, as well as her fifth collaboration with John Cale and third with him as producer. The album was her darkest, most caustic work yet. It carried the same organic, harmonium-based gothic music heard on "The Marble Index" and "Desertshore", but went one step further with the addition of Brian Eno's synthesizers and electronics. The mix of Nico's gloomy, hypnotic melodies and Eno's synthetic droning, as heard on "Innocent and Vain", produced an atmosphere of brooding apocalyptic destruction. Other songs that aren't as violently dramatic have a lingering distortion to them. "You Forgot To Answer" tells of the misery felt when she failed to reach ex-lover Jim Morrison by phone only to find out later that he had died. It's a simple mix of her vocals, Phil Manzanera's guitar, Cale's piano and Eno's synthesizer death-moans. The sound conjures up the Weimar Republic, with melodies reminiscent of Kurt Weill and angular, distorted electronics symbolic of Expressionism.

All but two of the songs on the album were written by Nico: a cover of the Doors' "The End" and the German national anthem "Das Lied der Deutschen", sung as a form of protest in behalf of terrorist Andreas Baader. Her interpretation of the national song which has been considered by some critics as the most significant interpretation of a patriotic anthem since Hendrix's performance in Woodstock, 1969. In retrospect, "The End" is a precursor to acts such as early Death In June and subsequently the neofolk movement, that blend European folk and classical with cutting-edge electronic experimentation.

The front and back covers feature stills from the Philippe Garrel film, "Les hautes solitudes" (1974), which Nico appeared in.

Track listing

"All tracks written by Nico except noted otherwise"

#"It Has Not Taken Long"
#"Secret Side"
#"You Forget to Answer"
#"Innocent and Vain"
#"Valley of the Kings"
#"We've Got the Gold"
#"The End" (Densmore, Krieger, Manzarek, Morrison)
#"Das Lied der Deutschen" (Hoffmann von Fallersleben, Joseph Haydn)

Personnel

*Nico: voice, harmonium
*John Cale: bass guitar, xylophone, acoustic guitar, synthesizer, organ, marimba, triangles, cabaça, boobams, glockenspiel, percussion, piano, electric piano
*Phil Manzanera: electric guitar
*Brian Eno: synthesizer
*Vicki Wood: backing vocals
*Annagh Wood: backing vocals