III. Artists ↑

17. The Velvet Underground

Link: Wikipedia: The Velvet Underground

Brian Eno once said that even though hardly anyone bought Velvet Underground recordings at the time they first appeared, almost everyone who did formed their own bands. This is apparently the only way to explain the immense influence this group has had, despite its almost entire lack of commercial success.

Although the Velvets were apparently similar to other late-sixties rock groups, in that their subject matter included sex and drugs, these similarities were only superficial. While other, mostly West-coast or London based bands, snuck in sly references to marijuana or LSD, and sang wryly about straight, extra-marital intercourse, the New York based VU trod an entirely different path: they sang, without apparent moral judgment, about addiction to harder drugs, such as heroin, with music that simulated the experiences accompanying such drug use. In the sexual realm, they sang about sado-masochism and other alternatives, again focusing on the immediate feelings of the participants, and not on the attitudes of the surrounding society, or on the larger consequences of such behavior.

The sounds the group produced were equally unique. Again, whereas other groups used feedback and borrowed avant-garde techniques from other musicians, these touches were mostly ornamental and carefully woven into the fabric of traditional pop and rock. In some of the Velvet Underground’s work, however, these effects were the centerpiece of the group’s sound. So whereas The Beatles used a bit of guitar feedback to introduce the otherwise traditional song, “I Feel Fine,” VU used feedback much more pervasively, and as a way of painting an urban landscape that was as foreign to normal sensibilities as was the music they were playing.

Unlike many groups that followed, however, the Velvet Underground defined itself neither by its extreme subject matter nor by its noise levels. The group recorded many songs that would qualify as soft- or folk-rock, and with much more conventional topics. In fact, the stylistic diversity captured on the group’s four originally released albums was broader than that of any of its contemporaries.

Amidst all these other characteristics, what is often ignored as an explanation for this band’s immense influence is its conscious approach to rock music as an art form. Singer, songwriter and guitarist Lou Reed studied avant-garde jazz, film and contemporary poetry while getting his degree at Syracuse University. He worked as a staff songwriter at Pickwick records for some time before founding the Velvets, so he had a taste of the commercial side of rock and pop, and made a conscious decision to pursue a different path. The group’s initial patron, producer and manager was Andy Warhol, a successful modern visual artist. John Cale, who played bass, viola and organ on the first two albums, was a classically trained musician who had come to the US from Wales in order to play serious, avant-garde music. Sterling Morrison, guitarist, eventually earned a Ph.D. in medieval literature.

The group was so focused on artistic goals that their original drummer, Angus MacLise, quit the band because he thought that any sort of commercial payment for their work violated the spirit of the band. The event that provoked this response was a gig playing at a high school in New Jersey — long before the release of their first album. Sterling Morrison recalls the decision. “Angus thought we were in it for art. We said, ‘Angus, we’re dying, we have no money, and we’re talking about $75!’ It was no sellout.” (Fricke 1995)

It is clear that this was a band intent on aesthetic, and not commercial, goals. According to Sterling Morrison, the group “never had an agenda for success.” John Cale describes the members of the group as “anarchists — but anarchists with heart.” And Lou Reed recalls advice from Warhol: “Andy said to me, ‘Whatever you do, keep all the dirty words.’ Essentially he was saying, ‘Don’t make it slick. Don’t make it smooth and ruin it.’ And we didn’t.” (Fricke 1995) It was only their fourth and final original album, Loaded, that was influenced at all by any commercial considerations, and by this time their artistic vision was well enough established that it was able to successfully weather such influences.

As with other sixties rock groups, the power of collaboration has also been neglected when considering the reasons for the Velvets’ artistic success. Sterling Morrison later said of the group, “With Cale and I, we were a real creative band. Lou really did want to have a whole lot of credit for the songs. So on nearly all the albums we gave it to him. It kept him happy. He got the rights to all the songs on Loaded, so now he’s credited with being the absolute and singular genius of the Underground, which is not true.” (Morrison 1980) In truth, all the members of the band deserve credit for helping to create the rich, unique sounds of the Velvet Underground.

A number of elements make the Velvets unique and worthwhile. First, their lyrics were like short stories, populated by fascinating characters from the Warhol coterie and from their circle of friends and acquaintances in New York City. Second, as they matured, their lyrics increasingly reflected a distinct worldview that valued beauty over functionality, art over convention, feelings over form. Third, their music reflected these values, using vocal harmonies, 12-string acoustic guitars, electronic feedback, and whatever else was at hand to craft hauntingly beautiful music. Fourth, they were masters at bending the music and instrumentation to the service of their words, always fashioning cohesive wholes in which the sound and the lyrics worked together seamlessly to create a unified artistic experience. As Lou Reed said in an interview, “…the music matched the words. If the words were scary, the music would get scary. If the words were sad, the music would get very sad.” (Fricke 1995) Fifth, although all the members of the group sang lead from time to time, Lou Reed ultimately emerged as a unique and important singer. In this capacity, Reed continued paths laid down by others such as Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger, further extending the expressive envelope of the rock vocal as he left strict adherence to melody and rhythm behind.

The group was a dynamic live act as well as a recording unit. Unfortunately, there were no professional recordings done of the band, since the group achieved little commercial or critical success while they were still together. Many live recordings are now available on CD, partly because the group’s legend has far outgrown the size of its initial recorded catalog. For the same reason, many additional albums of out-takes and long-lost recordings from record companies’ vaults have appeared since the group’s demise. As with many such ventures, ardent fans of the group will want to own everything that’s available. There is no doubt, however, that the band’s original four albums stand as finished works of accomplished artists, whereas the previously unreleased material generally had various good reasons for getting lost in the vaults in the first place.