NICO BACK THEN

To her admirers, Nico remains fascinating but unknowable, a towering beauty who was fabulously aloof. She is also a tragic symbol of the dark side of Sixties hedonism, a member of the rock aristocracy who fell spectacularly from grace.
If her personality is tricky to pin down, so, too, is the source of her talent. She is best remembered for her singing with the Velvet Underground, but her voice is, at best, an acquired taste, a lugubrious drone that makes Marlene Dietrich sound like Minnie Mouse. When it came to her acting career, Nico was largely confined to playing herself, whether as the enigmatic heroine of Jacques Poitrenaud's Strip-Tease or in Andy Warhol's 1967 snooze-fest Chelsea Girls.Her reputation took several batterings over the years, too. She was given to violent outbursts, fabricated her background and was accused of anti-Semitism. On leaving Lou Reed, she remarked to her friend and mentor Andy Warhol: "I cannot sleep with Jews any more." The Seventies and early Eighties were spent in a dysfunctional haze – gloomy, ravaged and strung out on smack. She never stopped performing, though in her later years she saw each gig as a means to get her next fix.

-The Independant
Oct 8 2008