There is a fabulously fascinating new book about Nico out now I want to recommend ! You Are Beautiful and You Are Alone: The Biography of Nico by Jennifer Otter Bickerdike (link here) is a warts and all dive into Nico’s life (understatement) with rapturously entertaining accounts of her relationships with Lou Reed (complicated), Jim Morrison/Brian Jones (mostly bad), Iggy Pop (free) as well as assorted sycophantic assholes (oh man). And it offers an especially enlightening look into her childhood and how it influenced her criminally underrated artistry. Iggy thinks that if there is any justice, she will follow the same trajectory as Van Gogh meaning at some point her work will be regarded with the widespread reverence and adoration it genuinely deserves. I love the idea of that but as any Nico fan knows, apart from her supremely tuneful and handsome first album Chelsea Girl (which she hated) and work with Velvet Underground, her music is something of an acquired taste. Yet it has to be said, her most fabled trilogy of albums,The Marble Index (’69), Desertshore (’70) and The End (’74) while not technically pop records are deceptively accessible for harmonium driven hymns of doom.
I hope Iggy is proven right, I mean it’s hard not to love the idea of emotive, hypnotic, dizzying epics like “Frozen Warnings” or “Janitor of Lunacy” becoming standards sung by demented and inspired children’s choirs the whole world over by the year 2075. Here’s hoping. Either way she was pretty incredible. Anyway, check out the book !
And now it’s time for the latest WEEKLY NEW WONDERS PLAYLIST featuring the finest new songs that have crossed our path over the past week. By some oddly synchronous coincidence, there is a darker slightly more rockin’ edge to this weeks gang and a couple of the tracks are downright Nico-esque. They are all beautiful too. Listen below on Soundcloud or Spotify.
Listen on Soundcloud
Listen on Spotify
PICKING UP ROCKS 
Coincidentally been trying Nico again after obsessing on Edie Sedgwick this week. I remember my pal Nick singing her at top volume while driving in his convertible in West Hollywood in the 80s. I tried her then, but it wasn’t time. She was very interesting and beautiful. I’ll keep trying every few years, because Iggy is probably right.
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