The Velvet Underground & Nico

The unconventional sound and overall nonconformist attitude toward commercial music, is what the Velvet Underground & Nico represented when they emerged on the scene and released their album in the 1960s.  Their music was coarse, improvisational, plus experimental in nature demonstrating an attempt to challenge the sound and theme of the times.  Each member of the group seemed as though they didn’t fit in to the norm of society and accidentally formed an alliance to fight for their own causes.  Lou Reed demonstrates his need to write songs about actual events that were happening in his own life and the events around him rather than write about made up stories that represented commercial music.  He states in an interview documented on a You Tube video found on the link that follows near marker 6:50 that he would

“Write about everyday reality”, and “what he really cared about”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3Uk2Y-De-w

On the other hand, John Cale demonstrated his frustration with his former project of combining “commercial” music with “avant-garde” music and migrated toward a more “cool” and “funky” style also stated on the above link near marker 5:30.  Lou Reed and John Cale were both responsible for the songs that would be written and developed.  Pop Artist Andy Warhol, produced the band and introduced Nico, a female German model, actor, and singer who he added to join the band.  The other two members Sterling Morrison, Lou Reeds’ college friend and guitarist for the band and Maureen Tucker the bands drummer completed the bands raw, loud, and controversial ensemble. 

Due to combining music with film and art, the band inspired a curious audience who wanted to know what the group was about.  Once listeners heard their rebellious, raw, and abrasive sound one couldn’t help but pay attention to what and why the band was making so much noise.  This is why the band stood out from the other bands of the time.   Their music was forceful in sound, visual in movement, and artistically interesting; this concept created a total wholeness from each of the band members and persons who contributed to the project and production of their music. 

The downside for the band is that not everyone listening would want to have forceful, loud, and strong ranting lyrics imposed on them since most music was written with less offensive topics and a sound that was more pleasing to the ears.   In addition, I would image the average person couldn’t handle too much stimulus with imagery and art.  Their music wasn’t for every audience and they didn’t care about that since they weren’t striving to appeal to the masses. The band members played for themselves and this was probably the reason behind the bands popularity and success in addition to the bands failures and pitfalls.

The interesting aspects of this album is the way in which sound production was utilize; by using different live instrumentation, art, and film to produce, record, and design sound for production is quite impression and creative.  As time has shown more advancements have developed in the recording industry since the 1960s.  The way in which we as music production professional develop a project should be approached with an open mind and opened ears in retrospect to what we can learn from the past.