The Velvet Underground & Nico | The Velvet Underground Lyrics, Song Meanings, Videos, Full Albums & Bios

The Velvet Underground & Nico is the debut album by American rock band the Velvet Underground, released in March 1967 by Verve Records. Accompanied by vocalist Nico, the album was recorded in 1966 while the group were featured on Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia event tour, which gained attention for its experimental performance sensibilities and controversial lyrical topics, including drug abuse, prostitution, sadism and masochism and sexual deviancy. Though the record was a commercial failure upon release and was almost entirely ignored by contemporary critics, The Velvet Underground & Nico is now widely recognised as one of the greatest Read Full BioThe Velvet Underground & Nico is the debut album by American rock band the Velvet Underground, released in March 1967 by Verve Records. Accompanied by vocalist Nico, the album was recorded in 1966 while the group were featured on Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia event tour, which gained attention for its experimental performance sensibilities and controversial lyrical topics, including drug abuse, prostitution, sadism and masochism and sexual deviancy.

Though the record was a commercial failure upon release and was almost entirely ignored by contemporary critics, The Velvet Underground & Nico is now widely recognised as one of the greatest and most influential albums in the history of popular music. It ranked 13th on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and was added to the 2006 National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress. In 1982, musician Brian Eno famously stated that while the album initially only sold approximately 30,000 copies, "everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band." Genres that were significantly informed by the album include art rock, punk, garage, grunge, shoegaze, gothic, indie, and most other forms of alternative music.