like velvet
In just the past week, I saw "Juno," "The Savages," and Tom Stoppard's play "Rock'n'Roll. Which means, among other things, that I've heard a lot of Velvet Underground music.Both "Juno" and "The Savages" use the Velvets' "I'm Sticking With You" prominently on the soundtrack. It's kind of an odd coincidence, two quirky indieish comedies appropriating the same atypical VU track, but the song works in both cases. "Juno"'s use of cutesy indiepop (mostly by Kimya Dawson) has taken some critical shots, but it didn't bug me, and out of the blue comes "Sticking," and it's a sweet moment.Stoppard doesn't use the Velvet Underground for sweet. He uses them to represent the exportation and infiltration of "subversive" rock music, as an influence on the underground Czech band The Plastic People of the Universe, as a prized part of the protagonist's treasured LP collection. So you don't get "I'm Sticking With You." Instead, Stoppard puts "Venus In Furs" and "I'm Waiting For The Man" on the "Rock'n'Roll" playlist, along with Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, The Grateful Dead, The Beach Boys...It's the best music you'll hear on Broadway, and maybe the best play altogether."Rock'n'Roll" ends with some of the key characters watching the Stones play in Prague in 1990, a cataclysmic moment. Three years later, The Velvet Underground played a reunion concert in Prague, and one of songs in their set was "I'm Sticking With You":
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