Cale, who had performed with John Cage and LaMonte Young, found himself increasingly attracted to rock & roll Reed, for his part, was interested in the avant-garde as well as pop. Reed did learn some useful things about production at Pickwick, and it was while working there that he met John Cale, a classically-trained Welshman who had moved to America to study and perform “serious” music. After graduation, he set his sights considerably lower, churning out tunes for exploitation rock albums as a staff songwriter for Pickwick Records in New York City. By the early ’60s, he was also getting into avant-garde jazz and serious poetry, coming under the influence of author Delmore Schwartz while studying at Syracuse University. Reed loved rock & roll from an early age and even recorded a doo-wop type single as a Long Island teenager in the late ’50s (as a member of the Shades). The member most responsible for these qualities was guitarist, singer, and songwriter Lou Reed, whose sing-speak vocals and gripping narratives have come to define street-savvy rock & roll.
The group was uncompromising in their music and lyrics, to be sure, sometimes espousing a bleakness and primitivism that would inspire alienated singers and songwriters of future generations.īut their colourful and oft-grim soundscapes were firmly grounded in strong, well-constructed songs that could be as humanistic and compassionate as they were outrageous and confrontational. Historians often hail the group for their incalculable influence upon the punk and new wave of subsequent years, and while the Velvets were undoubtedly a key touchstone of the movements, to focus upon these elements of their vision is to only get part of the story. By the 1980s, they were acknowledged not just as one of the most important rock bands of the ’60s, but one of the best of all time, and one whose immense significance cannot be measured by their relatively modest sales. the Velvets’ music was too important to languish in obscurity, though their cult only grew larger and larger in the years following their demise and continued to mushroom through the years. During their time, the group experienced little commercial success though they were hugely appreciated by a cult audience and some critics, the larger public treated them with indifference or, occasionally, scorn. The mid-to-late ’60s was an era of explosive growth and experimentation in rock, but the Velvets’ innovations - which blended the energy of rock with the sonic adventurism of the avant-garde, and introduced a new degree of social realism and sexual kinkiness into rock lyrics - were too abrasive for the mainstream to handle. It was the group’s lot to be ahead of, or at least out of step with, their time. Hindsight and critical re-appraisal have viewed The Velvet Underground as not just a seminal punk band but also one of the more important bands in the history of rock music.įew rock groups can claim to have broken so much new territory and maintain such consistent brilliance on record, as the Velvet Underground during their brief lifespan. Its poor sales at the time led to the band being dropped by Verve. By the time of their third album, The Velvet Underground in 1969, Cale had left to be replaced by Doug Yule. By the end of 1967, the band had split with Warhol and Nico splitting from the band as they were at work on their follow-up, White Light/White Heat. It fared even less well than their debut. Commercially, at the time, it never recovered. 171 on Billboard’s album chart, but legal issues over the back cover meant it had to be withdrawn from sale while the artwork was changed. Upon its release in March 1967, The Velvet Underground And Nico made No. His insistence that German-born Nico sings three songs on The Velvet Underground And Nico, as well as his genius, all helped to create the art-meets-music template from which later punk would in part be fashioned. Andy Warhol became the band’s manager in 1965 and his reputation helped their profile and got them a recording contract with Verve Records.
0 kommentar(er)
