What was repulsive and scary to most people, were associated with power, grace and beauty in the album The Velvet Underground and Nico, which made it even more frightening and compelling to there audience. Instrumentation maybe considered being chaos to some and the gritty lyrics would give them a reputation of scum when it comes to social status. The primary songwriters of the group were Lou Reed and John Cale. John Cale was gifted piano and violinist who studied composition in college. He had the reputation as a prodigy child ever since he was young a played an original composition on BBC at eleven years old. He was experimenting in avant-garde music but later became more drawn to rock ‘n’ roll music. Mean while Lou Reed’s sex and drug experimentation lead him to rock ‘n’ roll at an earlier age. At a failed attempt to promote one of Reed’s singles, Reed and Cale met through the band that was put together to perform the song. The band separated but Reed and Cale continued working together later forming The Velvet Underground. Cale played multiple instruments including the viola, guitar, and bass while Reed was the singer, guitarist, and songwiter in the band. Andy Warhol liked what the band had going on and produced their album The Velvet Underground and Nico. He didn’t know much about music but he sat behind the boards while they recorded and added German model Nico as the lead singer of the band. The band would perform at Warhol’s performance art tour called Exploding Plastic Inevitable. Although the album had poor recording in a run down studio and didn’t sell many copies, it was considered one of the most important influences for many bands, including the Sex Pistols and U2. Also the first band to have the vibe of the punk/ new wave movement. As an industry professional I believe the album was annoying, like John Cale once claimed, all his music was ment to do was annoy people but I am also am impressed by how different it was from anything ever created from its time. You have to be very creative to do what they did and there music went on to inspire so many others.
Hey man great post! By reading yours I actually remembered that I forgot to note that John Cale played multiple instruments. Thanks for that! I noticed Lou Reed kept talking about keeping things in the real world or writing lyrics that reflected reality. Also Andy Warhol had that loft called "The Factory" where The Velvet Underground was pretty much the house band. That's how they coined the term "Art Rock" instead being just another "Rock" band. There drummer also had no experience what-so-ever playing drums. She said that she would just start hitting things and try to hit those same things throughout the entire song to try and keep some kind of rhythm while Lou and John made all those weird sounds on guitar. That was just some stuff in mine That I mentioned that I noticed you didn't have, but you had a bunch of stuff I didn't have either. Great entry!
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