While Love showed our popular view of what the 60's were all about, Velvet Underground and Nico exposed its dark underbelly. They were Andy Warhol's house band at the infamous Factory. All sorts of creative endevours and mixing of ideas occurred there. And certainly an open-mindedness towards drug use as Lou Reed unapologetically announces in the song 'Heroin' and the blending of the notion of sexuality.
Nico, I believe was from Berlin, and her deep, unusual vocals summon up images of the Cold War, spies and danger around every corner. She is odd, that's a good thing.
The Factory became a safe haven for a whole group of individuals who were not accepted by the wider community at the time. In particular trans people. It is incredible to think that only now, really in the last year or so, we have begun to recognize and allow these people to come out of the shadows.
I am more familiar with the first half of the album. 'Sunday Morning' is a beautiful, lazy little song written from the pen of a streetwise Lou Reed. My favourite song is 'Venus in Furs', with its droning violin it is otherworldly. All in all a great album.