Displaying items by tag: Nico

Of all the albums we’ve designated as “essential,” the Velvet Underground’s first album, known officially as The Velvet Underground & Nico, is the only one that was a commercial failure when it was first released.

The album introduced the world to a guy who would go on to become a major influence on the music scene in the 1970s, Lou Reed. Reed wrote all of the songs on the LP, 9 by himself and 2 in collaboration with other band members, including John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and female drummer Mo Tucker.

The sound was both minimalistic and experimental. Cale played a viola on several tracks (not a staple of most rock bands). Instruments were deliberately detuned to create an eerie and sometimes unsettling sound. Reed’s lyrics dealt with topics that were a far cry from the Beatles’ love songs and the Rolling Stones’ faux bad boy posturing. The topics included heroin addiction, sadomasochism, prostitution, and sexual deviancy.

Released in 1967, just as “psychedelic rock” was taking off, 3 months before the “Summer of Love,” no one was ready this strange, gritty slice of New York street life that was a far cry from the flower power energy that was beginning to emanate from San Francisco on America’s other coast.

Indeed, record buyers might have thought pop artist extraordinaire, Andy Warhol, had decided to embark on a recording career as his was the only name to appear on the front cover. In truth, while he was listed as the album’s producer, Warhol’s contributions were limited to putting up the money for the album’s recording sessions and providing the artwork for the disc’s front cover.

And what a front cover it was! It featured a silk-screen-style illustration of a banana peel that could be peeled back, revealing another silk-screen-style print of a banana.

Flipping that cover over revealed that the actual artists were the Velvet Underground, accompanied on several of the LP’s tracks by the German singer Nico. Warhol had discovered the band and was serving as their manager in those days. He had assembled a traveling show that combined the music of the Velvets with an experimental light show that he named “The Exploding Plastic Inevitable.” Warhol had also inserted Nico into that traveling show, and she had accompanied the band on occasional tunes.

The group recorded most of the album before they had a record deal. They tried shopping it to Columbia Records. They passed, as did Atlantic and Elektra Records. The only taker was M-G-M’s Verve label. M-G-M was notoriously bad at promoting rock music. When that ineptitude was combined with the out-there lyrical content of the album, the result was a commercial disaster. “Underground radio” (the migration of rock from AM Top 40 stations to album-oriented FM stations) was just getting started, and most markets didn’t have any FM stations playing rock at that time.

So, the album sank like a stone (only reaching #185 on Billboard’s album charts). However, the album still found its way into the hands of many kids just getting their start in the music business, people like David Bowie, Iggy Pop, and Mott the Hoople, and it had a profound effect on them.

Since its release, the Velvet Underground & Nico has been credited with touching off the indie band movement, the punk movement, the art rock movement, and serving as major inspiration for bands like the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, Roxy Music, and others.

The Velvet Underground would soon break away from Warhol and record three more albums before Reed took off for a very successful solo career. Since its initial release, their debut album has consistently been cited as one of the greatest rock albums ever released and, despite bombing in 1967, has gone on to sell over a million copies.

If you’ve never heard this album, do yourself a favor. Track down The Velvet Underground & Nico and rediscover the exact moment when rock & roll grew up.