Album: Velvet Underground & Nico
Artist: Velvet Underground & Nico
Born: New York
Released: March 1967
Genre: Art Rock
Influenced: David Bowie, Brian Eno, Patti Smith, Talking Heads, Jesus & the Mary Chain, Sonic Youth
Everything about this album becoming a pop classic is unlikely. At the time of its release, this was outsider art. A classically trained, sonic innovator from south Wales meets a guy from Brooklyn interested in alternative guitar tunings, both fall under the patronage of underground artist Andy Warhol in 60s New York, and then recruit a German-accented, austere-sounding chanteuse to complete their sound. Unsurprisingly, the noise/music was so radical that barely anybody bought the album (yes, I've heard the Eno cliché), most critics hated it and radio stations didn't play it. All that optimism bubbling up on the west coast couldn't have met a more direct counterpoint in 1967. Here was a beautiful form of nihilism. High art, with a subject matter reminiscent of the novels of Hubert Selby Jr, especially Last Exit to Brooklyn ('64), set among society's outcasts; prostitutes, drug dealers, sexual deviants.
The music was proto-punk and you can see a direct lineage from the Velvet Underground to Patti Smith and Sonic Youth. Every song on the album deserves a mention; after the blissed out, psychedelic opener Sunday Morning, things take a heavier turn on I'm Waiting For The Man, one of my favourite Velvet tracks and the template for much of Lou Reed's early solo career. Femme Fatale was another cautionary tale about Factory girl Edie Sedgwick (not the first one mentioned on this blog, see Highway 61 Revisited), followed by Venus in Furs, a stately baroque masterpiece about S&M in which John Cale's viola is the star. Run Run Run has a bluesy feel and a brilliant lead vocal from Lou Reed, while All Tomorrow's Parties provides a snapshot of Warhol's Factory warehouse shindigs. Heroin is probably the most revolutionary song on the album, while There She Goes Again is the closest the Velvets get to conventional pop. Then pops up I'll Be Your Mirror, which feels out of place on the album; a straightforward love song, shorn of any cynicism, beautifully delivered by Nico. This is followed by a bit of noise and then the album closes with the experimental European Son, which points forward to the extended improvs of White Light/White Heat. More brilliant albums would follow from the Velvets, Lou Reed and John Cale but nothing would come close to this album in terms of scope and influence.
A few footnotes: 1) The Velvets were not just influential for their music, but also their leather & shades look; Jesus & the Mary Chain being one very notable example. 2) The album's producer deserves a lot of credit, and I'm not talking about Andy Warhol. Tom Wilson is one of the great 60s music producers, but seriously underrated; he worked with avant-garde innovators like Sun Ra, Dylan, Frank Zappa and Soft Machine. 3) Another producer note: Lou Reed would go on to have the more successful solo career, but John Cale would be this spectral figure throughout pop history, turning up as a producer on so many great albums by the Stooges, Nick Drake, Happy Mondays, etc, etc.
Artist: Velvet Underground & Nico
Born: New York
Released: March 1967
Genre: Art Rock
Influenced: David Bowie, Brian Eno, Patti Smith, Talking Heads, Jesus & the Mary Chain, Sonic Youth
Everything about this album becoming a pop classic is unlikely. At the time of its release, this was outsider art. A classically trained, sonic innovator from south Wales meets a guy from Brooklyn interested in alternative guitar tunings, both fall under the patronage of underground artist Andy Warhol in 60s New York, and then recruit a German-accented, austere-sounding chanteuse to complete their sound. Unsurprisingly, the noise/music was so radical that barely anybody bought the album (yes, I've heard the Eno cliché), most critics hated it and radio stations didn't play it. All that optimism bubbling up on the west coast couldn't have met a more direct counterpoint in 1967. Here was a beautiful form of nihilism. High art, with a subject matter reminiscent of the novels of Hubert Selby Jr, especially Last Exit to Brooklyn ('64), set among society's outcasts; prostitutes, drug dealers, sexual deviants.
The music was proto-punk and you can see a direct lineage from the Velvet Underground to Patti Smith and Sonic Youth. Every song on the album deserves a mention; after the blissed out, psychedelic opener Sunday Morning, things take a heavier turn on I'm Waiting For The Man, one of my favourite Velvet tracks and the template for much of Lou Reed's early solo career. Femme Fatale was another cautionary tale about Factory girl Edie Sedgwick (not the first one mentioned on this blog, see Highway 61 Revisited), followed by Venus in Furs, a stately baroque masterpiece about S&M in which John Cale's viola is the star. Run Run Run has a bluesy feel and a brilliant lead vocal from Lou Reed, while All Tomorrow's Parties provides a snapshot of Warhol's Factory warehouse shindigs. Heroin is probably the most revolutionary song on the album, while There She Goes Again is the closest the Velvets get to conventional pop. Then pops up I'll Be Your Mirror, which feels out of place on the album; a straightforward love song, shorn of any cynicism, beautifully delivered by Nico. This is followed by a bit of noise and then the album closes with the experimental European Son, which points forward to the extended improvs of White Light/White Heat. More brilliant albums would follow from the Velvets, Lou Reed and John Cale but nothing would come close to this album in terms of scope and influence.
A few footnotes: 1) The Velvets were not just influential for their music, but also their leather & shades look; Jesus & the Mary Chain being one very notable example. 2) The album's producer deserves a lot of credit, and I'm not talking about Andy Warhol. Tom Wilson is one of the great 60s music producers, but seriously underrated; he worked with avant-garde innovators like Sun Ra, Dylan, Frank Zappa and Soft Machine. 3) Another producer note: Lou Reed would go on to have the more successful solo career, but John Cale would be this spectral figure throughout pop history, turning up as a producer on so many great albums by the Stooges, Nick Drake, Happy Mondays, etc, etc.
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