The music and image of The Velvet Underground & Nico was well known for its experimental musicianship and their outlook and focus on a lot of controversial subjects that they liked to put in their songs and in the album.
Lou Reed would write about drugs and sex in a fashion that Rock and Roll hadn’t heard yet. He was one of the original members and songwriters of the band, but he also sang and played guitar for The Velvet Underground as well.
John Cale and Lou Reed were roommates who started the band together. John Cale also wrote and developed the music and would sing some backgrounds, but he was most known for his work on the Viola on some of their hit songs. Cale would eventually leave the group because of disagreements between Reed and himself.
Andy Warhol supported, promoted and produced The Velvet Underground & Nico both financial and artistically. He would put them on a multimedia performance art show that would inevitably be one of the “breaks” of their career (he also did artwork for some of the albums).
The Album artwork alone set The Velvet Underground & Nico album apart from most of its time, The album cover is famous for its Warhol design: a banana with “Peel slowly and see” printed near a tab. If you removed the banana skin found a pink, peeled banana beneath. And although the album didn’t sell very well (mostly because of legal issues with a still from the Any Warhol movie “Chelsea Girls” on the back cover turned upside down) it is still noted as one of the best Rock albums of all time
The Velvet Underground & Nico album really took me by surprise. To be honest, I had never heard of them until I was assigned this listening and blogging assignment. I truly enjoyed the awkward experimental feel of the music. This is a band and album I will definitely keep listening to.
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