Blog Entry 4: The Velvet Underground and Nico

During the 1960's when pop bands were writing happy rock songs, buying matching suits and choreographing pop dances, there was another group who paved the way for future rock movements by being almost the antithesis of this pop movement, The Velvet Underground. Found by Andy Warhal in 1964, The Velvet Underground became a huge part of an underground movement of art and music fueled by Warhal's crazy world of free expression and drugs. Warhal released this band to the world by funding their initial albums and by featuring them in his videos and having them play at his various shindigs.  Lou Reed and John Cale were the driving forces behind this strange music that challenged the way songs were written and recorded. Lou Reed being a self taught guitarist, learning from the radio at a young age and then moving up through various projects until right before he met John Cale, he was spending his time in his apartment writing songs for Pickwick Records. John Cale is almost the opposite of Lou Reed, being a more classically trained musician, he studied Music and learned Viola in college and participated in many orchestral performances in New York. The interesting thing is how that all came together to form the Velvet Undergrounds rough and raw music. John Cale playing chaotic harmonies under Lou Reeds almost placid, stagnant singing, created uneasy and messy sounds unheard by the world to this point, inspiring future movements in the 80's like the punk movement. When they played and recorded they had the opposite attitude of The Beatles and Beach Boys carefully planned out arrangements. They barely edited their songs, often recorded the whole band at once and sometimes even only did one or two takes of the song before calling it done. The art and expression was truly the core value to this band at the end of the day and they let nothing get in the way of that. I find this to be a fantastic ideal and I almost found myself meshing with them as I listened to them, I understood what they were trying to do and trying to say. They definitely highlight the artistic part of the music industry that is almost completely forgotten today.