His ultimate act of cheerleading: co-producing, alongside his brilliant guitarist Mick Ronson, Reed’s single best solo album. “I’m Waiting For The Man'' followed him into his live sets through the Spiders From Mars and beyond, alongside “White Light/White Heat,” and his own Velvets’ mojo-aping originals such as “Queen Bitch.” He continually name-checked them and Reed in interviews until his 2016 death, and he pushed such Velvets songs as “Sweet Jane” onto such acts he produced as Mott The Hoople. “I literally went into a band rehearsal the day after I heard the record, put down the album and said, ‘We’re gonna learn this song,’” Bowie later recalled. Upon returning from a brief New York business trip in November 1966, then-manager Kenneth Pitt gifted Bowie with an acetate of The Velvet Underground & Nico, personally handed to him by Warhol during a visit to the Factory. The earliest artist to cover them, no one did more to spread the gospel of the Velvet Underground. David Bowieĭavid Bowie was a one-man Velvets/Reed fan club.
Here are 15 of the Velvet Underground’s greatest musical disciples.
The VU inspired real and sonic revolutions. The Czech Republic’s first president, former dissident and playwright Václav Havel, informed Reed during a visit that a bootleg volume of his song lyrics sustained and inspired him. The Velvets and Reed even inspired Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution. Yet, everyone who listened became some of the most important musicians of their time. The Velvets’ influence far outstripped its paltry record sales. All the while, Reed told people what they didn’t want to hear, in the language of great literature or poetry. Future albums concentrated on other aspects of VU-ness: White Light/White Heat ’s whiplash, noisy fuzz-punk, The Velvet Underground ’s downbeat pop. The Velvet Underground & Nico also contained tender ballads of great beauty- “Sunday Morning,” “All Tomorrow’s Parties,” “Femme Fatale.” All chimed like a gothic cathedral. Read more: 10 glam-rock artists from the 1970s who heralded the coming age of punk All were lashed with the dissonance shriek and roar of Reed and Sterling Morrison ’s guitars, and the classically trained John Cale ’s electric viola, which he scraped when not being the VU’s bass guitarist. Most pulsed to a rumbling rock ‘n’ roll propelled by drummer Maureen “Moe” Tucker ’s standing, minimalist pounding. Drugs ( “Heroin” ), sadomasochism ( “Venus In Furs” ), more drugs ( “I’m Waiting For The Man” ), death ( “The Black Angel’s Death Song” ), alienation ( “European Son” ) and possibly more drugs ( “Run Run Run” )-this is just the subject matter of the first LP alone. His office instead appeared to be in the gutter. Leader Lou Reed was a classic pop songwriter who could have had an office in the Brill Building. Their manager was deeply polarizing pop artist Andy Warhol, who seemingly absorbed them into his entourage of drug users, transsexuals, queers and displaced socialites. They came to assault you and your values, musical or otherwise. Ill-tempered, they were not here to entertain. Yes, it can, and this is perhaps the most important lesson the Velvet Underground: the power of the human soul to transcend its darker levels.They were too cool to talk to you, all black leather and shades after dark. Their spiritual odyssey ranges from an early blast of sadomasochistic self-loathing called “I’m So Fucked Up,” through the furious nihilism of “Heroin” and the metaphysical quest implied in the words “I’m searching for my mainline,” to this album, which combines almost overpowering musical lyricism with deeply yearning, compassionate lyrics to let us all know that they are finally “Beginning to See the Light.”Ĭan this be that same bunch of junkie - faggot - sadomasochist - speed - freaks who roared their anger and their pain in storms of screaming feedback and words spat out like strings of epithets? Yes. The real question is what this music is about - smack, meth, deviate sex and drugdreams, or something deeper? How do you define a group like this, who moved from “Heroin” to “Jesus” in two short-years? It is not enough to say that they have one of the broadest ranges of any group extant this should be apparent to anyone who has listened closely to their three albums. The Velvet Underground are alive and well (which in itself may surprise some people) and ever-changing.
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