The Velvet Underground & Nico
1967 studio album by the Velvet Underground and Nico / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Velvet Underground & Nico is the debut studio album by the American rock band The Velvet Underground in collaboration with the 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, and was produced by Warhol, with the album featuring a record sleeve that he designed. The album features elements of avant-garde music incorporated into brash, minimal and groove-driven rock music, with frontman Lou Reed delivering explicit lyrics spanning themes of drug abuse, prostitution, sadomasochism and sexual deviancy.
The Velvet Underground & Nico | ||||
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Released | March 1967 (1967-03)[lower-alpha 1] | |||
Recorded | April, May and November 1966 | |||
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Length | 47:51 | |||
Label | Verve | |||
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Nico chronology | ||||
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Singles from The Velvet Underground & Nico | ||||
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The Velvet Underground & Nico underperformed in sales and polarized critics on release due to its abrasive, unconventional sound and controversial lyrical content, but later became regarded as one of the most influential albums in rock and pop music and one of the greatest albums of all time. Characterized as "the original art-rock record",[7] it was a major influence on many subgenres of rock music and alternative music, including punk, garage rock, krautrock, post-punk, post-rock,[8] noise rock,[9] shoegaze, gothic rock, and indie rock.[10] 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".[11]
The album was ranked number 13 on Rolling Stone's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" in 2003, and 23 on the 2020 updated list.[12][13] In 2006, it was inducted into the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[14]