The Velvet Underground

The velvet Underground was a avant guard band from the 60’s and 70’s. Up until now there hadn’t been many bands like them. With the help of famous Pop artist Andy Warhol The Velvet Underground was able to produce 5 albums before their break up. 

Their music has influenced many bands after them because of their songwriters, Lou Reed and John Cale. As founding members and song writers there was tension between Reed and Cale. Before Cale left The velvet Underground in 1968 he recorded the first to albums ‘The Velvet Underground’ and ‘ White Light/White Heat’ with the band.  Thought Cale did many things for the band.  Songwriter Co-writer of music for many tracks his greatest contribution to The Velvet Underground was the amplified viola. Lou Reed was The Velvet Undergrounds main songwriter. The Velvet Underground was never a big mainstream hit but the did and still have a growing cult following. With the commercial failure of the band Lou Reed left the band to peruse a solo career.  He enjoyed a bit of success with ‘Walk on the wild side’ but that was it. Four years after leaving The Velvet Underground he would return.

Like I said in my opening paragraph Velvet Underground was able to exist because of Andy Warhol. He had lots of pull because of his successful art career.  After becoming a famous painter Andy gave up that medium to create his art with. He started to create performance art and in a way The Velvet Underground was one of his on going performance pieces.

To an untrained ear The Velvet Underground recordings sounded like unorganized unrehearsed noise.  But the band knew completely what they were doing. Minus the drummer they were fairly talented musicians and were able to pull off something like this. The other think that set them apart was Andy Warhol himself. Even though he wasn’t a member of the band just having his endorsement brought in people to their shows at least early on in their career.

I enjoy their music as a listener and I enjoy Lou Reed’s Transformer album. Outside of enjoying the music they really don’t do much for me both as a listener and as a industry professional.