The New York based American rock band, ‘The Velvet Underground’ was active during the period of 1964 to 1973. It consisted of the famous Lou Reed known as the “The King of New York” with band members John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Maureen Tucker. During the band’s career and performance, Nico (Christa Paffgen) a German singer, songwriter, actor and model performed vocals on The Velvet Underground’s debut album. Though the album had minimal success during its time, it would be considered as the precursor to many genres such as punk rock, ambient, alt. rock and experimental music such as the Misfits, Brian Eno, REM and many other artists to follow for generation to come. As the band’s career progressed, producer Andy Warhol included Nico into the band’s roster for her experimental songwriting and vocal performances. In 1967 they released the album The Velvet Underground & Nico on Verve Records, which would be eventually owned by MGM Records.
Lou Reed was born on March 2nd 1942 and is the guitarist, vocalist and songwriter behind the Velvet Underground. His offbeat songwriting ideas, though unpopular during the 1960s, would create a cult following over the years and create a grand solo career for him for generations to follow. John Cale the multi-talented instrumentalist and singer was the other key member behind The Velvet Underground. After his time with the band he created a solo-career for himself with over 30 Albums and his ideas would give birth to genres such as drone music, folk rock, experimental ambient, art rock and protopunk.
Andy Warhol, the producer behind The Velvet Underground & Nico was predominantly famous for his work as a painter, printmaker and filmmaker and is the key figure behind the art movement known as Pop art. As an avant-garde filmmaker and visionary producer who mingled in diverse social circles in Hollywood, he saw the musical product of The Velvet Underground as a way to mix art, music and film together. As the band’s experimental ideas were a great canvas for him as a producer, he exploited their ideas and visions of the band to bring them to a greater commercial success. He found the bands descriptive songs of topics such as drug abuse, alienation, prostitution, sadism, masochism and sexuality a way to portray a provocative image to society and culture of the time.
In my opinion it was a brave expressionistic movement during the 60s for such a band. As the band was resonating at a completely different audio and visual spectrum from other bands such as the Beatles and Beach Boys during the time of the psychedelic movement, it paved the way to modern experimentation in sound, art and visual ideas for the future generations. I find some of the ideas such as the intentional or unintentional dissonance in the voice of Nico not so pleasing at times and a bit overdone. I do however like the overall experimental nature of the album, as I am a big fan of avant-garde, out of the box, expressionistic art ideas whether it is in music or film. I am grateful for the vivid phenomenon that Andy Warhol, The Velvet Underground and Nico created as it has influenced so many generation of artists such as myself to break free from stereotypical ideas, artistic rules and social programming. It is due to such music that today we have more freedom as artists and inspires us to continue to push the bar in art technologies and expression.
Lalith-
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post and think it was well researched and written. The Velvet Underground was ahead of their time and it wasn’t realized just how influential they would be on music, specifically experimental and punk music, until the 80s. While their music wasn’t widely accepted during their time as a group, it would certainly live on in groups such as the Misfits, Brian Eno, REM, etc. as you mentioned in your post. You were able to explain the band’s history and influences well, and I think you were very thorough in those explanations.
The only thing that I noticed was a bit vague was the explanation of the roles and backgrounds of John Cale and Lou Reed. Cale and Reed were the founders of the group, eventually dropping a couple people to replace them with drummer Maureen Tucker, and Reed’s college friend, Sterling Morrison on guitar. Cale was the primary composer and arranger for the group, while Reed wrote most of the lyrics. Cale was a prodigy on Piano and Violin and was classically trained. He came to the U.S. to pursue a Bernstein Scholarship and he worked with several legendary composers before meeting Reed and starting the Velvet Underground. Reed was a songwriter for Pickwick Records and a rock musician from Long Island.
The group was definitely very unique and their image as an avant-garde “art band” was something that had never been seen before. Warhol’s production and management of the band was indeed crucial to developing that image. His addition of Nico to the band was something that really made a difference in the bands commercial and musical impact. You explained that with detail in your post.
Overall, I feel that you have a very strong, well-written post and have done your research. You were detailed where it was necessary, but probably could have gone a little further in depth with a few things that may have benefited the reader. Good job! Keep up the good work! I am looking forward to reading future posts.