EXPLORE THE VELVET UNDERGROUND’S
MUSICAL LEGACY ON TIDAL
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“The Velvet Underground has had an invaluable influence on music. Despite their titular and literal underground status, the whole band looks like an art-rock dream team in retrospect: Lou Reed – New York garage rocker and punk poet; John Cale – British classical music student with an ear for post-modern drone and minimalism…” Read More
“The Velvet Underground have an invaluable influence on music that can’t be understated. What The Beatles did for pop and mainstream rock, The Velvet Underground did for punk, post-punk, art-rock, grunge, and every variation of alternative, indie and experimental rock. We honor the band’s extreme legacy with just a couple of examples of their tracks and their traces.” (Photo credit: Adam Ritchie)
“The Velvet Underground entered my life when I was 18 and had started college. My roommate had a copy of ‘Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History’ of Punk by Gillian McCain and Legs McNeil, a book which chronicled the story and lifestyle of The Velvet Underground, and it quickly became a bad influence.” Read More
“”They were new and different enough and I hadn’t heard music like this before. That was my first impression of the Velvet Underground. Being a Beatles fan, and to add some perspective, ‘The Velvet Underground and Nico’ came out several months before ‘Sgt. Pepper’s,’ they were without precedent.” Read More
“There’s a version of this playlist that’s just every available recording of ‘Sister Ray.’ I’ve heard every one that’s available as far as I know and the version that kicks off this playlist is my favorite. I know it’s long but it’s what guided me in choosing the subsequent tracks, which are undeniably my favorites; and there are a lot I had to begrudgingly leave off.” Read More
“If we associate the likes of Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly with the origins of the Rock Era, and the Beatles and the Stones as the beginnings of it’s true flowering as an art form, then the Velvet Underground (along with The Stooges, MC5 and many others) represent a further expansion of the form – more extreme, more punk, more art, and in some ways as primitive as any other band before or since.” Read More
