10 Rock Music Albums That Divided Critics
2. The Velvet Underground & Nico: The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967)
Let's set the scene: it's the Summer of Love - the year the Beatles drop Sgt. Pepper's. Blissful psychedelia is exploding from the finger tips of Jimi Hendrix and free love and unity are the words on everyones lips. Right in the middle of all this, an avant-garde group from New York drop an album exploring the seedy and sordid underbelly of New York's bohemian scene.
Surprise to say, the graphic nature of the lyrics and the ominous sound of the music wasn't in keeping with the trends of the time. Moreover the references weren't veiled behind metaphor. These songs were forth coming in what they were getting at. Musically, Venus In Furs, sounded like a warped decent into drug fuelled depravity. Lyrically, the song spoke openly of sadomasochism. Both Waiting for The Man and Heroin shamelessly discussed the relationship between an addict and their drug of choice. Radio stations were turned off by the notion of peddling such material. And critics, for the most part, couldn't understand where it stood within the wider musical context of the day.
The fragile minds of America just weren't ready for the Underground.