10 Albums From The '60s That Changed Rock History
6. The Velvet Underground and Nico - The Velvet Underground
Not everything that becomes a classic does so overnight. Even if you made the most forward thinking album that you can possibly muster, there’s a chance that the rest of the world is going to need to take a few more years to catch up to what you’re doing. And for the Velvet Underground, the debut went from total amateur hour to one of the most inspirational records ever made.
Born and bred in the New York art rock scene, the Velvets were just as much inspired by the seedy underbelly of drug abuse and androgyny as they were about Bob Dylan and the Beatles. Bringing together artist Andy Warhol and German singer Nico, every single track on this record is a different side to what the Velvets were capable of, going on long experimental songs like Heroin to the urgency of waiting for your dealer on I’m Waiting For the Man.
There’s a lot of seediness to be found here, but there’s also a ton of sunshine to help balance it out. For as much as something like Venus in Furs may be a bit too much to get the average listener involved, there are songs like Femme Fatale and Sunday Morning that are almost too gorgeous to even be considered rock and roll. That was the whole point behind the Velvets’ approach though. Art is supposed to be an imitation of life, and for the first major art rock statement, you have to have a balance between the light and the dark.