The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground & Nico is the debut album by the American rock band the Velvet Underground and German singer Nico, released in March 1967 through Verve Records. It was recorded in 1966 while the band were featured on Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable tour. The album features experimental performance sensibilities and controversial lyrical topics, including drug abuse, prostitution, sadomasochism and sexual deviancy. The Velvet Underground & Nico initially sold poorly and was mostly ignored by music critics at the time, but later became regarded as one of the most influential albums in rock and pop music. Described as “the original art-rock record”, it was a major influence on many subgenres of rock music and alternative music, including punk, garage, krautrock, post-punk, shoegaze, goth, and indie. In 1982, English musician Brian Eno quipped that while the album only sold approximately 30,000 copies in its first five years, “everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band”. In 2003, it was ranked 13th on Rolling Stone’s list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time”, and in 2006, it was inducted into the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress.
