50 years of The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground was an American rock band from New York City consisting of singer Lou Reed, guitarist Sterling Morrison, and drummer Moe Tucker. The band was notably managed by pop artist Andy Warhol for a short time from 1966 to 1967. This month witnesses the 50th anniversary of the Velvet Underground’s 1969 self-titled release. The Velvet Underground is their third studio album, recorded in 1968 at TTG studios in Hollywood, California and released later in March 1969.

The Velvet Underground wrote about life as they knew it — the things going on around them, the beautiful and the ugly. They talked about topics that were not supposed to be talked about, and that, indeed, nobody was talking about: drug abuse (“Heroin”), society’s “freaks” (“All Tomorrow’s Parties”), paranoia (“Sunday Morning”), scoring drugs (“I’m Waiting for the Man”), and sadomasochism in the context of sex (“Venus in Furs”). The Velvet Underground were revolutionary in the introduction of social realism and sexual kinkiness to rock music. The mainstream media at the time found them too abrasive and rejected them in the beginning. However, the Velvets had unwittingly built a cult following of musicians, critics, and fans alike. The Velvet Underground has influenced many revered groups, ranging from Joy Division all the way to The Strokes.

The album is similarly self-titled to its predecessors, though the stylistic shift towards gentler melodies is forwardly clear. The album consists mostly of ballads and straightforward rock songs, deviating from the band’s tendency to delve into experimental rock. The softer sound stems from Lou Reed telling the band that the new album needed to “demonstrate [their other side]. Otherwise [the group] would become this one-dimensional thing, and that had to be avoided at all costs.” The process of creating the album was a lot of fun, according to drummer Moe Tucker, who was pleased with the direction the band was going in.

The album’s first track “Candy Says” opens with a gentle murmur as it ruminates unflinchingly in its harrowing portrayal of transgender icon Candy Darling. Guitarist Doug Yule whispers out plainly about the lamentations of hating one’s body as a result of the world having expectations of people based on the gender assigned to them at birth. The amount of pain punctuated within every word of the song makes the song appear uncertain if it has the strength to progress to the next verse. For the chorus, Yule sings:

I’m going to watch the blue birds fly

Over my shoulder

I’m going to watch them pass me by

Maybe when I’m older

What do you think I’d see

If I could walk away from me

Within these lines can be detected a taste of vulnerability. Much of the rest of the album tackles issues related to mistakes many of the members in The Velvet Underground have made, and how they deal with them. They are issues that are fundamentally human.

“What Goes On” is the only forceful song on the record aside from “Beginning to See the Light.” Lou Reed seamlessly juxtaposes a church organ and guitar to turn Sunday mass into a frenzied ordeal. The galloping rhythm of the guitar helps the song build to a giant crescendo and disquiets the listener after the relaxation brought on by “Candy Says.”

“Pale Blue Eyes” is the best song on the album and perhaps in the Velvet Underground’s discography. It is a masterpiece, in awe of its own simplicity. Replete with a somber tambourine, a muffled guitar and a gentle Hammond organ drone, Lou Reed sings about his tragic love for a married woman. The love he has for this woman is boundless, but no matter, she cannot be his for the simple reason that she belongs to somebody else. The song’s lowest point goes:

It was good what we did yesterday

And I’ll do it once again

The fact that you are married

Only proves you’re my best friend

But it’s truly, truly a sin

“Jesus” is an odd stance for Lou Reed, considering the fact that he is both born Jewish and not affiliated with any religion at the time. Reed begs for Jesus to help him “find [his proper place / help [him] in his weakness / cause he’s falling out of grace.”  Pretty interesting, especially when taken into consideration with the fact that during an interview with NY Rock, Lou Reed stated, “My God is rock’n’roll.”

“I’m Beginning To See The Light” is Lou Reed’s reawakening. On this track Reed is ecstatic, and wants to tell everyone about how much better off he is. He peppers his lively guitar with a weightless drum beat with an occasional ad lib: a yelp here, a ‘woo’ there.

“I’m Set Free” follows in a similar vein to its previous track. While not nearly as lively as “Beginning To See The Light,” “I’m Set Free” succeeds in its job of being a more subdued meditation among the hustle and bustle of the greater album.

“That’s The Story Of My Life” employs a ticking motif that has been replicated in more important songs. And, although Lou Reed held a particular disdain in his heart for the Beatles, I can’t help but wonder whether this song resembles the type of filler material that would comfortably nestle itself among Paul McCartney’s discography.

“The Murder Mystery” is nothing short of a mess, but in the best possible way. The track encounters many oddities, and every member of the Velvet Underground contributes in some way. It’s to be expected from a band that released a 17-minute track that defied nearly every rule of music theory on their 1968 album White Light / White Heat. There is so much going on at all points in the song. On the verses, Reed and Morrison utter their own separate poems on the respective left and right channels. As the song progresses to the chorus, Tucker and Doug Yule sing two entirely separate chorus among the respective left and right channels. A simple piano riff and a couple of tape loops wraps up the entire song.

“After Hours” is a testament to Lou Reed’s self-awareness. It is unassuming drummer Tucker who shines through on this unapologetically wistful track, rather than Reed, with his trademark deadpan and nihilistic outlook on life. On “After Hours,” Turner addresses her intrinsically human desire to be loved. When her voice cracks as she holds out hope that one day somebody will tell her, “Hello, you’re my very special one,” one can’t help but realize this may be one of the most unassuming and silently devastating moments of The Velvet Underground’s entire discography.

The music of the Velvet Underground was destined to be a commercial flop. By the time their music was being released, the summer of love was already well underway. Flower power seemed to be a ways away from the Velvet Underground’s dirty and dingy playground where hard drugs was interspersed with heaps of decadent sex. People wanted nothing to do with this gruesome world that echoed the harsh realities of life.

And yet, we see the influence of the Velvet Underground in every decade. In the 1970s, the far-reaching effects of the Velvet Underground rivals ancient folklore. After the departure of Lou Reed from the band, there was a generalized mea culpa emanating from the media. People in the music industry knew they had missed out on a legendary group, and so there was a resurrection of popularity for the group post-breakup. Boston-born Jonathan Richman, future frontman of the garage band The Modern Lovers, saw the Velvet Underground play 80 times, on top of sleeping on their manager’s couch and writing articles about them.

The irreplaceable David Bowie was a notable Velvets fan, and Bowie and the Velvet Underground both wrote songs devoted to one another. “Queen Bitch” from David Bowie’s album Hunky Dory (1971) is a tribute to Lou Reed and his goons, and David Bowie also went on to help produce Lou Reed’s solo effort Transformer in 1972.

Joy Division’s 1979 release Unknown Pleasures was heavily influenced by the Velvet Underground. The band was commonly referred to as “the Velvet Underground with synthesizers,” which is a valid point considering that Joy Division frequently covered “Sister Ray” and mirrored their solo in “Day of the Lords” to structurally resemble the solo in “Venus in Furs.”

The Talking Heads were one of the most prolific bands at the forefront of the new wave movement in the 1970s. One of their greatest hits — “Once In A Lifetime” — borrows an organ riff from the Velvet Underground’s “What Goes On.” The Talking Heads made waves in the music world for infusing genres like punk, pop, and everything in between. Their ability to do so simply would not have been possible without the guidance of The Velvet Underground from the previous decade.

The influence of the Velvets’ extended even further into the future. It is undeniable that the British “shoegaze” phenomenon of the 1990s could not have come to fruition had the Velvet Underground not existed. The Velvet Underground was well-known for their adoration of distortion and feedback, which is a large foundation of what shoegaze bands built their sound off of. In an interview with Slowdive frontman Neil Halstead, the artist discussed his fascination with famous shoegaze band Jesus & Mary Chain, whose hit “Just Like Honey” notably appeared in the soundtrack for Sofia Coppola’s film Lost In Translation (2003). Halstead realized that “not only did the Mary Chain owe the Velvets a debt, but so did every other ‘alternative’ band [he] was listening to at that point.”

In the 2000s, nobody has emanated the Velvet Underground more than Julian Casablancas, the lead singer of The Strokes. In the Pitchfork article rating The Strokes first album Is This It, there are numerous allusions to Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground in general. There’s that monotonous, bored voice, but it’s a little less drugged up, a little more ready to enthusiastically narrate Casablancas’ adventures in big city life.

The Velvet Underground was the definition of perfection, mostly because they weren’t trying to be anywhere near perfect, not even close. The Velvet Underground refused to obey any musical rules laid out for them by their predecessors, which was amplified by the fact that revered artist and visionary Andy Warhol was a “producer” of their earlier albums. Perhaps the qualities that made them such pariah during their time of reign — their do-it-yourself, under-produced production style, or their cynical outlook on the rough parts of life — caused them to be so timeless today. Any artist considering themselves left-of-center that emerged after the 70s acknowledges a huge debt to the Velvets. That’s a pretty interesting twist of fate for a band that was once derided and shunned from the public eye, as admitted In an interview with Lou Reed during the 1990s: “I just keeping thinking that when The Velvet Underground first came out with songs like ‘Heroin,’ we were so savaged for it” he said.  “Here it is a few decades later, and I have those lyrics published in a book, and I’m giving readings at art museums. We wanted to make records that would stick around like great novels or movies, and we believed in what we were doing, even if nobody else did.” That willingness to resist releasing music deemed acceptable by social norms paid off, in spades. The last stanza of “After Hours” may be about “closing the door” on someone, but I don’t think that will ever happen to The Velvet Underground again. Not anytime soon at least.

Article by Erika Badalyan