The Velvet Underground and Nico by The Velvet Underground and Nico (Click to comment/discuss)
Guest Editor: Lee Smith
This album has been hailed as one of the most influential records ever made. Hard to believe when it sold so few copies at the time, but it has been said that most people who listened to this went on and formed their own band, or were transformed and inspired to live their own life on their own terms. Subversive, yes. Revolutionary, yes. Beautiful, yes. Life changing, yes.
I first encountered the Velvet Underground on the South Bank Show around 1986. As a teenager I was hungry and thirsty and curious in that all-consuming adolescent quest for new experiences and new art for expressing those experiences. The sober, respectable Melvin Bragg introduced the band and I was gripped and fundamentally changed by what I saw and heard over the next hour. The documentary may still be on Youtube – check it out.
I had to get the record. The first thing that strikes one as odd is the album cover, an over-ripe banana on a white background with the name Andy Warhol written underneath. This had to be good. This was art.
The Velvet Underground comprised Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison and Mo Tucker. All had attitude and the desire to break new ground. They weren’t messing around. The album begins with Sunday Morning, a pretty pop song that will haunt you forever. There follows songs on such subjects as sado-masochism, drug dealing and drug abuse, obsessional love, thwarted love, Delmore Schwarz( great writer), and death.
There is no other record like this and no two tracks are the same. It is probably the most varied, surprising album ever made, ranging from straight pop to experimental drone, from guitar- driven rock to lovely love songs that will make you want to roam the streets looking for the One. Please listen, it will change and heal your life.
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