Loaded

Cotillion, an Atlantic subsidiary, signed the band and asked for an album loaded with hits, which gave the record its title. Reed left in August 1970, before the album came out. He said it had been remixed and resequenced without his consent, and he was unhappy that a section of Sweet Jane had been cut and that New Age was edited. Yule has said Reed edited the songs himself. The 1997 Fully Loaded set restored the longer versions.

Tucker is credited but not heard, because she was pregnant. Yule played drums on several tracks, with the engineer Adrian Barber, Tommy Castagnaro and Billy Yule filling in the rest. Yule also played bass, piano and organ, recorded several lead guitar parts, and sang lead on four songs: Who Loves the Sun, New Age, Lonesome Cowboy Bill and Oh! Sweet Nuthin’. Reed later said that Loaded had no Maureen on it and that many people call it their favorite Velvet Underground record. The cover drawing is by Stanisław Zagórski and shows the Times Square subway entrance.

Neither the album nor its singles charted. Lenny Kaye wrote in Rolling Stone that there was an undercurrent that made it more than a collection of good-time cuts, and Christgau found it really intellectual and ironic. Jeff Gonick of Paste wrote that Who Loves the Sun, Sweet Jane and Rock & Roll together are among the best three-song openings on any rock and roll record. Loaded had sold 250,000 copies by 2013.