Artist bio

See also: Lou Reed

The Velvet Underground made music imbued with the depth and richness of real life, and their work remains among rock's most powerful.

So many bands have just that one thing they do really well, and they can't always stretch out into other realms without losing a bit of what makes them great. But there's so much to love about music. Somehow, VU's got it all. The Velvets' range ensures that there's something in here for any mood that might strike you. Driving down the highway with the windows rolled down? Throw on Loaded for some enervating rock and roll. A late-night conversation with old friends? Maybe the soul-baring melancholy of the third album. Got those blues again and ready to be sonically assaulted? Try the extreme sound palette of White Light/White Heat. You can wake up on Sunday morning listening to the sunbeam instrumental "Ride Into The Sun," a non-album track from the Another View compilation. But if you're walking down 2nd Avenue with headphones on, you might want to go with the steady urban pulse of the group's 1967 debut, The Velvet Underground And Nico.

Because the Velvets were able to accomplish so much in so little time -- six years at the end of the '60s -- their catalog is easily consumed. They only released four records, easy enough to purchase at once (more than one box set includes all four). Yes, there are other places to go -- live albums, two LPs worth of non-album tracks released in the '80s -- but you can hold the Velvets' entire catalog in hand.

Each of the band's four records is a radical, unexpected departure from its predecessor, and each is a rock and roll classic in its own right, offering benchmark songs and timeless inspiration to its listeners. Of course, the group only had its first two albums hit the Billboard charts, and even those with paltry showings. But in retrospect, this lack of any real commercial success made them immune to a lot of common fame-induced pratfalls. During the band's life, none of its members accumulated a great deal of material wealth, they didn't become huge stars, and most importantly, they didn't get stuck in the dangerous mindset of "people will buy our music if it sounds like THIS, so let's keep churning it out." There were no hastily issued follow-up albums to capitalize on chart successes. There was no laughable '80s period. And they dissolved before they put out anything subpar.

The Velvet Underground is the classic rock band for people who really dig music. If they're not your favorite band, odds are that your favorite band was in some way influenced by VU. And if not, you're probably not reading this! Or something like that.

Albums by this artist

Bootleg Series Volume 1: The Quine Tapes (2001)

Loaded (1970)

The Velvet Underground (Recommended) (1969)

White Light/White Heat (Recommended) (1969)

Features

The Velvet Underground: The NATN Pantheon
Published December 11, 2006

The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground

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» TROY CARPENTER | CO-DIRECTOR

NATN Recommended The Velvet Underground The Velvet Underground Verve, 1969 RiYL: R.E.M., Robyn Hitchcock, The Modern Lovers

OK, it's 1969. The Velvet Underground has released one album in each of the past two years, going from the haunting exploration of the New York underground on the Andy Warhol-produced Velvet Underground And Nico to the abrasive sonic palette of White Light/White Heat. But founding member and crucial creative foil John Cale has left the group after mounting tensions with frontman Lou Reed. Young Doug Yule has been recruited to fill Cale's spot, but the band has changed. Their modicum of popularity has shrunk -- no Velvet disc will again crack Billboard's album charts during its active career.

Yet some of the group's eventually best-known work has yet to be recorded. Enter The Velvet Underground, the group's third album, and possibly one of the most radical stylistic departures in the history of rock. As the follow-up to the inscrutable, eardrum-pummelling White Light/White Heat, this bedroom confessional is about as far away from its predecessor as possible. The album, whose black cover shows the four group members serenely lounging on a couch, is a stripped-down affair that literally sounds like it was recorded in a bedroom or a closet, and the end result is that Reed's songwriting is allowed to fully blossom, with sparse instrumentation never obscuring his tender melodies and ultra-catchy refrains.

Right off the bat, the band's metamorphisis is apparent. When last we heard them, it was in the wasteland of "Sister Ray." The Velvet Underground's opener, "Candy Says," not only starts with a mild, gently plucked circular guitar lick, the voice that rises off the vinyl is of new member Doug Yule. "Candy says 'I've come to hate my body, and all that it requires in this world'," he croons. Well, at least the subject matter is still risqué, as the song tells the story of a transsexual trying to find her place in the world.

Yule's plaintive voice actually works very well with Reed's lyrics, a likely reason he was inducted into the group, as he gave the Velvets another vocal facet, which would come in handy on this one and 1970's Loaded. But Reed wasn't about to just hand over the spotlight. One of his catchiest songs, "What Goes On," is in at the No. 2 slot, Reed, Yule, and Sterling Morrison's guitars locking in on the ineffable groove.

Reed also turns in his own shot of tender ballad singing on "Pale Blue Eyes," possibly the group's greatest song of that ilk, with its unforgettably simple chorus "linger on, your pale blue eyes." There's a strong theme of redemption, or rebirth, running through the album, evidenced most strongly by the quietly majestic hymn "Jesus," with one of Reed's most naked vocals ("Help me in my weakness / 'cause I'm falling out of grace"). You can hear him experience recovery in the next song, "Beginning To See The Light," in which an ebullient rock groove is given a beating, with Lou shrieking such deliriously happy lyrics as "Wine in the morning / and some breakfast at night / Oh yeah, baby, I'm beginning to see the light!"

"I'm Set Free" is likewise a celebration of release, with its music echoing the lyrical sentiment, as quietly read verses about being unbound from shackles gather momentum behind Mo Tucker's pounding toms toward more exultant choruses.

The schizophrenic oddity "The Murder Mystery," with its vocal overlapping and bizarre key mutation, showed the Velvets hadn't lost their sense of experimentation. The nine-minute tune found Morrison and Reed reciting contrasting poetry at the same time in different audio channels, and though Reed later claimed the song was a failure, it is an impressive achievement that lends the album some sonic depth toward its close.

Many claim the Velvet Underground's third album is their best, but such contentions are of course highly subjective, especially when it comes to a band with such originality and success in a variety of idioms. Yet incontrovertibly, The Velvet Underground is an essential album in the catalog of arguably rock's most essential band. Though it wasn't a hit at all upon its release, the album has since been inducted into rock's highest pantheon, proving Reed's mantra in "What Goes On": "baby be good, do what you should / you know it'll be all right."

TROY CARPENTER | Troy Carpenter founded NATN from a Chicago apartment during the ambitious winter of 1998 with co-conspirators Ben French and Jonathan Cohen. After a five-year stint in New York, he and wife Lourdes have recently relocated to Indianapolis, where he spends days listening to music and nights in the kitchen at Elements restaurant. Musical heroes: Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Super Furry Animals. What else makes life worth living: Sushi, Phucty, runs in the park, and the Atlanta Braves.