Nico - Chelsea Girl (1967) (@256)

The story behind today's upload is the New York's Chelsea hotel, where many musicians, artists and writers (see a list here) lived and drawn inspiration. Many songs and books refer to Chelsea, and a number of movies were shot here.

For such place of cultural importance, the hotel's board of directors decided to drastically refurbish it and to convert it to a faceless, clean cut hotel, thus deleting a significant part of NY's art history; it's the city's second major cultural loss within a short period after CBGB. As part of their plan, Stanley Bard who had been running the hotel since 1955 (while his father was doing the same from 1946 to 1955) was ousted one year ago. Long term residents were horrified, and started a campaign to bring back the Bards as managers and majority shareholders of Chelsea.
Check also: Chelsea blog and Chelsea-dedicated page


One of the movies shot in Chelsea hotel was Andy Warhol's Chelsea Girls, where Nico (with many other 'members' of the Warhol Superstars) was playing. Nico's accordingly named first solo lp is a dream mix of first-class compositions from Bob Dylan, Tim Hardin, Jackson Browne and her V.U. acquaintances Reed, Cale and Morrison with her exceptional vocals.

album review link: here

download link: here (link removed due to a DMCA)