Velvet Underground: The influence of The Velvet Underground , how about you?

[ping-ping-clicka]

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=V.U.+wHITE+LIGHT++I+HEARD+HER+CALL+MY+NAME

 

[posttoastie]

 

[twangking]

Real tricks playing that city jive **** ya dig?

 

[Toto'sDad]

 

[CalebAaron666]

I’ll take the Velvets over the Beatles or Pink Floyd any day of the week.
Weaponized poetry. Even in their most vulnerable, they sounded subversive.

 

[Ed Driscoll]

As Brian Eno famously said:

“I was talking to Lou Reed the other day, and he said that the first Velvet Underground record sold only 30,000 copies in its first five years. Yet, that was an enormously important record for so many people. I think everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band!”

Guilty as charged -- I was one of them.

 

[Blazer]

Well the New York city punk scene owes them a lot as does the nineties grunge scene and bands such as Sonic Youth sure got a lot from them too.

 

[twangking]

You should check out GG Allin. A natural progression

 

[Chiogtr4x]

I can't honestly claim influence on me as except for Sweet Jane, and maybe Rock and Roll, I never really heard ANY Velvet Underground till just maybe 10 years ago.
My bad! I just heard/read about them for 40 years without hearing the music.

But now I love it! The art, honesty, the music, the edge - this was great New York musical poetry. Wow!

 

[schoolie]

This has become my favorite Velvets song:

 

[Moonraker5]

All my favorite bands cite The Velvets as their influence and love The Velvets. I sure don't.

Odd how that works. My favorite bands love The Velvet Underground, yet I don't.

 

[Killing Floor]

I can't honestly claim influence on me as except for Sweet Jane, and maybe Rock and Roll, I never really heard ANY Velvet Underground till just maybe 10 years ago.
My bad! I just heard/read about them for 40 years without hearing the music.

But now I love it! The art, honesty, the music, the edge - this was great New York musical poetry. Wow!

You heard them in everything else. That’s how influences work. One band I wish I could have been in the right place/time to see.

 

[clydethecat]

POV | The Velvet Underground Played At My High School

In 1965, the Velvet Underground played for a crowd of shocked New Jersey high schoolers.

www.pbs.org

 

[68goldtop]

Hi!

I first heard two songs ("Heroin" and "Lady Godiva´s Operation") from a "mix-tape" in 1984, and the sound and "strangeness" positively FLOORED me at the time.
I went out and bought every VU-album I could get a hold of - which led to numerous encounters with other "unknown" bands...
So, yeah, they definitely were an influence

cheers - 68.

 

[regularslinky]

Lest we forget, none of us would have ever heard of the Velvets were it not for this guy.

 

[ahiddentableau]

Robert Quine talked about how he felt the genius of the Velvet Underground was something to do with its simplicity and willingness to play up drone-y, almost annoying repetitive sounds. He compared it to Brian Eno's later ambient work and Miles Davis's Get Up With It. There's a vibe to it that is maddeningly simple and yet you don't want to stop listening. I agree. I love that. They played up the simplicity of rock music right up to the edge of what is possible, but because it's so simple it's all the more captivating.

Then again this underrates their skills. Is the guitar solo on "Pale Blue Eyes" a lousy or substandard piece of playing? I don't think it is. The rhythm part on "Run Run Run"? Does the Chuck Berry thing really well and takes it in a different direction. There's a lot of great guitar stuff on those records but most people act like the only thing that was groundbreaking and interesting are the lyrics.

 

[68tele]

VU never clicked with me, tho you'd think they would based on bands I do like.

 

[slauson slim]

A friend in my USAF days insisted that I listen to the Banana album shortly after It came out. Liked their stuff then, and subsequent albums, and still listen to it.

VU influential to this day.

 

[darkwaters]

They’ve been influencing my music for about 40 years now. Perhaps the most remarkable band to come out of the Sixties.

 

[boris bubbanov]

My great friend Prudence bought the album, right off when it came out, and invited me over. We listened to it diligently (as we did to so many other records, looking for something great in the 70s sea of mediocrity, and concluded this wasn't it). We took it off after 2 tries (multiple listens of a couple) and put Todd Rundgren back on.

I can imagine some not too adept, would be musicians listening to Lou and thinking "Hey, I can do better". And no doubt about it, most did.