The Velvet Underground & Nico

Verve Records

The ultimately influential debut record from the Velvet Underground celebrates its 55th year of existence. The album that wouldn't sell well at all when first released can teach us a lot about influence. It's a long term game. Do your thing and move on. Time will tell.

The branches on the family tree of Rock grew fervently longer - and more colourful - after the release of this record. The doors of possibility seemed wide open as The Velvet Underground paved way for acts decades in advance of their existence. Stepping out on a limb, you bear fruits that are out of reach and hidden from view.

Endlessly influential material such as this is hard to wrap up into a few paragraphs. Where do you begin? There isn't a contemporary act that hasn’t been influenced by this record - whether they know about it or not. It's pretty much the birthplace for the more experimental sides of the rock realm - noise rock, art rock and experimental rock in and of itself. Lou Reed, John Cale, Maureen Tucker, Sterling Morrisson and Nico provided the blueprint for the future of popular music as we know it and an alarming amount of offshoots in the meantime.

The sleazy narratives portrayed across the record - especially on tracks such as 'Heroin' and 'Femme Fatale' - pull away from the norm of the times. Things were beginning to loosen up a little towards the closing chapters of the 60's. Things were coming undone. The daydream bubble was about to be well and truly burst.

Partnering up with Andy Warhol obviously had a lot of influence on the circles in which the material landed. The music, the image, and the artwork all tie in with artsy fartsy kin. Everything fits into the art world aesthetic, or artistically tries to appear as if it doesn't want to. How cool.

Notable Tracks: Sunday Morning, Heroin

March 12th, 1967.