The Velvet Underground might just be the most influential band you’ve never heard of.
Unlike bands like the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, the Velvet Underground never achieved commercial or financial success during their time together, even with the help of the massively popular Andy Warhol as their producer.
But time, not popularity, is what defines art – and it should come as no surprise that critics and musicians from all walks of life cite the Velvet Underground as one of the most important and influential bands to come out of the 1960’s.
The seeds for the band were formed in 1964, when singer/guitarist Lou Reed met John Cale, a Welshman who had moved to the United States to study classical music.
Both men had a meticulous curiosity in creating experimental sounds through pop music, a trait that would help define the low, droning guitar noise that became synonymous with the New York outfit.
The Velvet Underground’s credibility within the avant-garde art world grew sharply when Andy Warhol expressed an interest in the band. Warhol was at the peak of his popularity, and helped the band gain a record deal with him as nominal ‘producer’.
Perhaps more incredible is that Verve Records, who gave the Velvet Underground their deal, allowed the band to have free reign over the sound they created – an astonishing feat considering the nature of the Velvet Underground’s music at the time.
During their time with Andy Warhol, the band became part of his multimedia roadshow, Exploding Plastic Inevitable, which travelled throughout the United States and Canada, further raising the band’s profile.
In 1967, under Andy Warhol’s watchful eye, the Velvet Underground released their first album, The Velvet Underground and Nico. Although it was largely ignored at the time of it’s release, the record has since become one of the most influential and critically acclaimed albums in history, appearing at number thirteen on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
While the Velvet Underground produced two more albums after ‘The Velvet Underground and Nico’, they never achieved commercial success before tensions between Cale and Reed tore the original lineup apart. But, like all great art, it found its way into the collective unconscious, and today the Velvet Underground is revered and loved by millions of people worldwide.
Perhaps the reason they are so popular now has something to do with the fact that they never reached the stratospheric heights of the contemporaries the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. To many music and art fans, the Velvet Underground are as mysterious as their name implies: straddling the line between the known and unknown, the band act almost like a secret handshake between people who know anything about music, about art, and about the New York scene. If you know about the Velvet Underground, or you’ve seen the classic banana sleeve cover, chances are you’re a pretty cool person. And if you didn’t before, you do now.
