Going by the original schema I set out, we have run out of eligible suggestions for the first time. If I wasn’t a bit busy the last few days I wouldn’t mention it and just bend the rules a bit, but in the interest of brevity I thought we’d do a classic week (hopefully to foster some more regular contributors!).
So this week we will be listening to The Velvet Underground and Nico.
Before Strange Days, Are You Experienced?, the debuts of both David Bowie and Pink Floyd, Love - Forever Changes, Safe As Milk, Cream, and even before even Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band - came The Velvet Underground and Nico.
This is the original visual banana reference (King Gizz are into these guys btw), and there is very little about this record that didn’t originate with it.
This is the album that Brian Eno famously said ‘only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought one started a band’; and many of those bands got their 15 minutes of fame, a turn of phrase at the time recently coined by Andy Warhol. Warhol’s influence on this (apart from the cover art) is apocryphal and esoteric, credited as ‘producer’, this role consisted of little more than sitting around in the studio making sure Nico was allowed to participate.
Of course Nico’s presence here has always been a point of controversy too, and in my opinion the album would be weaker without her. But for a band who thrived on their creative differences (how else could you invent Noise Rock?), her departure (was she ever a true band member to begin with?) led to many other important moments.
But most people know all this anyway, so let’s dig in and get mutually acquainted with easily one of the most important art records ever made.