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Joe Harvard | 128 pages | 01 May 2004 | Bloomsbury Publishing PLC | 9780826415509 | English | London, United Kingdom The Velvet Underground & Nico - The Velvet Underground | Songs, Reviews, Credits | AllMusic

A half-century on, The Velvet Underground and Nico remains the quintessential emblem of a certain brand of countercultural cool. Not the Haight- Ashbury or Sgt. Pepper kind but an eerier, artier, more NYC-rooted strain. Bolstered by the patronage of and the exotic vocal contributions of Nico, Lou ReedJohn Cale, and Maureen Tucker declared their independence from Top 40 decorum with a gritty, innovative and unapologetically self-possessed work. In many ways, The Velvet Underground and Nico was the first rock album that truly seemed to invite the designation alternative. What we were doing was churning out these rip-off albums. And I was kidding around and I wrote a song doing that. Reed recorded the song with a group of studio players, releasing the song under the name the Primitives. It sold in respectable quantities, convincing the label to assemble musicians to pose as the phony band and promote the The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico at live gigs. Reed began hunting for potential members, valuing attitude as much as musical aptitude. He found both in . Intrigued by his pedigree, Reed invited him to join the Primitives. Sensing The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico opportunity for easy money and some laughs, Cale agreed. Clearly on the same musical wavelength, they connected on a personal level afterwards. There was a certain meeting of the minds there. Sterling Morrison became involved with the duo after a chance meeting with Reed, his classmate at Syracuse University, on the subway. The fledgling Velvet Underground were befriended by pioneering rock journalist Al Aronowitz, who managed to book them a gig at a New Jersey high school that November. This irritated the bohemian MacLise, who resented having to show up anywhere at a specific time. When informed that they would be receiving money for the performance, he quit on the spot, grumbling that the group had sold out. She The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico, and the classic lineup was in place. School gymnasiums were not the ideal venue for the band. Its name was something of a misnomer, as neither the owners nor the handful of customers appreciated the way-out sounds. In a half-hearted attempt at assimilation, the group added some rock standards to their repertoire. Three weeks in, the tedium became too much bear. The self- sabotage had the desired effect and they were relieved of their post — but not before they caught the attention of Andy Warhol. The title would have rather loose connotations, though he did make one significant alteration to their sound. Fearing that the group lacked the requisite glamour to become stars, he suggested the addition of a striking German model known as Nico. The proposal The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico not met with complete enthusiasm — Reed was particularly displeased — but she was tentatively accepted into the ranks as a featured vocalist. Now billed as the Velvet Underground with Nico, Warhol incorporated the band into a series of multimedia performances dubbed the Exploding Plastic Inevitable: a marriage of underground music, film, dance and lights. Also assisting was year-old Norman Dolph, an account representative at Columbia Records who moonlit as a DJ and soundman. By the spring ofWarhol decided it was time to take his charges into the recording studio. Knowing little about such matters, he sought out Dolph for advice. Dolph was tasked with booking a studio, covering a portion of the costs himself, producing and leaning on colleagues at Columbia to ultimately release the product. It was recorded in the same building that later housed Studio One of his clients was Scepter Records, best known for releasing singles by and . Their modest offices on West 54th Street in midtown Manhattan were noteworthy for having their own self- contained recording facility. We went in there and found that the floorboards were torn up, the walls were out, there was only four mics working. Though Warhol played only a distant role in proceedings, he would return to West 54th Street a great deal in the following decade, when the ground floor housed the infamous . It would earn the distinction of becoming one of the first Velvet Underground tracks to ever The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico covered — half a world away in Vietnam. A group of U. Drawing from skills honed through his journalism studies, not to mention a healthy affinity for William S. Amazingly, Reed had attempted to record the song during his days on the pop assembly line at Pickwick Records. So I came back in. With a cynical and often bitter wit, he instilled in Reed an innate The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico of belief in his own writing. After just 10 lines of lyrics, it descends into a chaotic avant-garde soundscape. Schwartz almost certainly never heard the piece. Crippled by alcoholism and mental illness, he spent his final days as a recluse in a low-rent midtown Manhattan hotel. Being managed by Andy Warhol came with certain perks, and one was the guarantee of a killer album cover. Bored by mere static images, he devised a peel-away sticker of a pop art banana illustration, under which would be a peeled pink and slightly phallic banana. Emerson, who had recently been busted for drug possession and was badly in need of money, threatened to sue the label for the unauthorized use of his image. Copies of the album were recalled in June, all but dooming its commercial prospects. The album thus vanished form the charts almost immediately in June, just when it was about to enter the Top It never returned to the charts. The tracks for the album were largely complete by Maybut a combination of production logistics — including the tricky stickers on the cover — and promotional concerns delayed the release for nearly a year. The band believed that Zappa used his clout to hold back their release in favor of his own album with the Mothers of Invention, Freak Out. And we were totally naive. Whatever the truth may be, Sterling Morrison held a serious grudge against Zappa for the rest of his life, making no effort to hide his contempt in interviews. Reed also had some choice words for Zappa over the years. Newswire Powered by. Close the menu. . Log In. To help keep your account secure, please log-in again. You The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico no longer onsite at your organization. Please log in. 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It was recorded in while the band were featured on Andy Warhol 's Exploding Plastic Inevitable tour. The album features experimental performance sensibilities and controversial lyrical topics, including drug abuseprostitutionsadomasochism and sexual deviancy. It sold poorly and was mostly ignored by contemporary critics, but later became regarded as one of the most influential albums in the history of popular music. Many subgenres of rock music and forms of alternative music were informed by the album, including art rockpunkgarageshoegazinggothand indie. At the instigation of their mentor and manager Andy Warholand his collaborator Paul MorrisseyGerman singer Nico was also featured; she had occasionally performed lead vocals for the band. Inas the album was being recorded, this was also the line-up for their live performances as a part of Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable. This recording session was financed by Warhol and Columbia Records ' sales executive Norman Dolph, who also acted as an engineer with John Licata. Soon after recording, Dolph sent an acetate disc of the recordings to Columbia Records in an attempt to interest them in distributing the album, but they declined, as did Atlantic Records and Elektra Records —according to Morrison, Atlantic objected to the references to drugs in Reed's songs, while Elektra disliked Cale's viola. When the record's release date was postponed, Wilson brought the band into Mayfair Recording Studios in Manhattan in Novemberto add a final song to the track listing: the single " Sunday Morning ". Although Andy Warhol is the only formally credited producerThe Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico had little direct influence beyond paying for the recording sessions. Norman Dolph and John Licata are sometimes attributed to producing the Scepter Studios sessions, as they were responsible for recording and engineering, though neither is credited. However Sterling Morrison and both cited Warhol's lack of manipulation as a legitimate method of production. He just made it possible for us to be ourselves and go right ahead with it because he was Andy Warhol. In a sense, he really did produce it, because he was this umbrella that absorbed all the attacks when we weren't large enough to be attacked Of course he didn't know anything about record production—but he didn't have to. He just sat there and said "Oooh, that's fantastic," and the engineer would say, "Oh yeah! It is fantastic, isn't it? Lou Reedwho wrote the majority of the album's lyrics, never intended to write about such topics for shock value. An English major who studied for a B. Why wouldn't you listen to it? You have the fun of reading that, and you get the fun of rock on top of it. Though the album's dark subject matter is today considered revolutionary, [28] several of the album's songs are centered on themes more typical of popular music. Certain songs were written by Reed as observations of the members of Andy Warhol's " Factory superstars ". While the song does seem to be another observation of Factory denizens, Reed wrote the song before meeting Warhol, having recorded a demo in July at Ludlow Street. Much of the album's sound was conceived by John Calewho stressed the experimental qualities of the band. He was influenced greatly by his The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico with La Monte YoungJohn Cage and the early Fluxus movement, and encouraged the use of alternative ways of producing sound in music. Cale thought his sensibilities meshed well with Lou Reed's, who was already experimenting with alternate tunings. For instance, Reed had "invented" the ostrich guitar tuning for a song he wrote called "The Ostrich" for the short-lived band the Primitives. Ostrich guitar tuning consists of all strings being tuned to the same note. Often, the guitars were also tuned down a whole step, which produced a lower, fuller sound that Cale considered "sexy". The viola used guitar and mandolin strings, and when played loudly, Cale would liken its sound to that of an airplane engine. Of the vocal performances, he believed "Nico's contained chantoozy sexuality" complemented "the dispassionate abandon of Reed's chant singing". Early copies of the album invited the owner to "Peel slowly and see", and peeling back the banana skin revealed a flesh-colored banana underneath. A special machine was The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico to manufacture these The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico one of the causes of the album's delayed releasebut MGM paid for costs figuring that any ties to Warhol would boost sales of the album. A Japanese re-issue LP in the early s was the only re-issue version to include the banana sticker for many years. On the CD reissue, the banana image is on the front cover while the image of the peeled banana is on the inside of the jewel casebeneath the CD itself. The album was re-pressed onto heavyweight vinyl infeaturing a banana sticker. When the album was first issued, the main back cover photo taken at a performance of Warhol's event Exploding Plastic Inevitable contained an image of actor Eric Emerson projected upside-down on the wall behind the band. Having recently been arrested for drug possession and desperate for money, Emerson threatened to sue over this unauthorized use of his image, unless he was paid. The complaint involved copyright infringementtrademark infringement and unfair competition. Alleging that the Foundation had earlier claimed it "may" own the design's copyright, the partnership asked the court for a declaratory judgment that the Foundation did not have such rights. On the Foundation's motion, Judge Alison J. Nathan severed and dismissed from the lawsuit the partnership's copyright claim. According to Judge Nathan, The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico Constitution allows federal courts to decide only "Cases" or "Controversies"which means ongoing or imminent disputes over legal rights, involving concrete facts and specific acts, that require court intervention in order to shield the plaintiff from harm or interference with its rights. The judge held that the partnership's complaint fell short of that standard because even if the Foundation continued to claim ownership of the design's The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico even if its claim was invalid—that claim would not legally harm the partnership or prevent it from making its own lawful uses of The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico design. The partnership did not claim that it The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico the design's copyright, only that the Foundation did not. Since, according to the court, the Foundation promised not to sue the partnership for any "potentially copyright-infringing uses of the Banana Design", the partnership could continue using the design and there would be no legal action that the Foundation could take under copyright law [a 1] to stop it. And if, the court concluded, the partnership could continue with business as usual as far as copyright was concerned regardless of whether the Foundation actually owned the design's copyright, a court decision would have no practical consequences for the partnership; it would be a purely academic or " advisory " opinion, which federal courts may not issue. The court therefore "dismissed without prejudice" the partnership's request that it resolve whether the Foundation owned the design's copyright. The The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico controversial content led to its almost instantaneous ban from various record stores, many radio stations refused to play it, and magazines refused to carry advertisements for it. The album first entered the Billboard album charts on May 13,at number and left the charts on June 10, The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico, at number When Verve recalled the album in June due to Eric Emerson's lawsuit, it disappeared from the charts for five months. It then re-entered the charts on November 18,at numberpeaked at number on December 16,and finally left the charts on January 6,at number The critical world initially took little notice of the album. One of the few print reviews of the album in was a mostly positive review in the second issue of Vibrationsa small rock music magazine. Christgau wrote in his retrospective review for The Village Voice that the record had been difficult to understand in"which is probably why people The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico still learning from it. It sounds intermittently crude, thin, and pretentious at first, but it never stops getting better. In The Encyclopedia of Popular MusicColin Larkin called it a "powerful collection" that "introduced Reed's decidedly urban infatuations, a fascination for street culture and amorality bordering on voyeurism. In Aprilone month after the album's release, a band called the Electrical Banana may have recorded the first cover version of "". According to bandmember Dean Ellis Kohler, they recorded it in a tent in Vietnam in April and sent the master tape to a company in California to have 45 RPM records pressed. Also invarious artists from Argentina collaborated to produce a track-for-track cover of the The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico. They played a number of concerts in Buenos Aires to celebrate the release of the album, which was made available online for free. Frustrated by the album's year-long delay and unsuccessful release, Lou Reed 's relationship with Andy Warhol grew tense. Reed fired Warhol as manager in favor of Steve Sesnick[63] who convinced the group to move towards a more commercial direction. Her debut solo album, Chelsea Girlwas released in Octoberfeaturing some songs written by Velvet Underground members. The first CD edition of the album was released in and featured slight changes. The title of the album was featured on the cover, unlike the original LP release. In addition, the album contained an alternate mix of "All Tomorrow's Parties" which featured The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico single track of lead vocals as opposed to the double-tracked vocal version on the original LP. Apparently, the decision to use the double-tracked version on the original LP was made at the last minute. The subsequent remastered CD reissue removed these changes, keeping the original album art and double-tracked mix of "All Tomorrow's Parties" found on the LP. The album was featured on the second disc of the set along with the single version of "All Tomorrow's Parties", two Nico tracks from Chelsea Girl and a ten- minute excerpt of the minute "Melody Laughter" performance. Also included in the set on the first disc are the band's Ludlow Street loft demos. InUniversal released a two-disc "Deluxe Edition" set containing the stereo version of the album along with the five tracks from Nico's Chelsea Girl written by members of the band on disc one, and the mono version of the album along with the mono single mixes of "All Tomorrow's Parties" and "Sunday Morning" and their B-sides "I'll Be Your Mirror" and "Femme Fatale" on disc two. A studio demo of the unreleased track "Miss Joanie Lee" had been planned for inclusion on the set, but a dispute over royalties The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico the band and Universal canceled these plans. This contractual dispute apparently also led to the cancellation of further installments of the band's official Bootleg Series. However, this track was included in the subsequent re-release, 45th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition. On October 1,Universal released a 6-CD box set of the album. Disc two contains the same bonus tracks as the prior deluxe version's second disc. Disc three is Nico's Chelsea Girl in its entirety and the Scepter Studios acetate see below in its entirety occupies disc 4. Discs 5 and 6 contain a previously unreleased live performance from According to the essay by music critic and historian Richie Unterberger contained within the set, the source for the show is the only audio tape of acceptable quality recording during singer Nico's tenure in the band. The essay also clarifies that the absence of any DVD materials in the box set is due to the fact that none of the band's shows were filmed, in spite of their heavy reliance on multimedia visuals. Norman Dolph's original acetate recording of the Scepter Studios material contains several recordings that would make it onto the final album, though many are different mixes of those The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico and three are different takes entirely. The acetate was cut on April 25, The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico, shortly after the recording sessions. Although ten songs were recorded during the Scepter sessions, [15] only nine appear on the acetate cut. Inthe acetate was officially released as disc 4 of the omnicomprehensive "45th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition" box set of the album see above. The disc also includes six previously unreleased bonus tracks, recorded during the band's rehearsals at on January 3, However, a ripped version of the acetate began circulating the internet in January Init went back to auction. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Not to be confused with The Velvet Underground album. The Velvet Underground and Nico. Art rock [1] [2] proto-punk [3] psychedelic rock [4] avant-pop [5] experimental rock [6] alternative rock [7]. The percussive, " barrelhouse "-style piano is heard behind Lou Reed's descriptive lyrics. This sample contains the first verse. The droning electric viola accompanies the " ostrich"-tuned guitar. This sample contains the second verse. As the song nears its final crescendo, the percussion quickens and the electric viola produces feedback. Shortly after the death of Lou Reed init peaked at The Velvet Underground & Nico - Wikipedia

The band was initially active between andand was briefly managed by the pop artist Andy Warholserving as the house band at the Factory and Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable events from to The band's integration of rock and the avant-garde achieved little commercial success during its existence, but it is now recognized as one of the most influential bands in rock, undergroundexperimentaland alternative music. The foundations for what would become the Velvet Underground were laid in late Singer-songwriter and guitarist Lou Reed had performed with a few short-lived garage bands and had worked as a songwriter for Pickwick Records Reed described his tenure there as being "a poor man's Carole King ". Cale was pleasantly surprised to discover that Reed's experimentalist tendencies were similar to his own: Reed sometimes used alternative guitar tunings to create a droning sound. The pair rehearsed and performed together; their partnership and shared interests built the path towards what would later become the Velvet Underground. Reed's first group with Cale was the The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico, a short-lived group assembled to issue budget- priced recordings and support an anti-dance single written by Reed, "The Ostrich", to which Cale added a viola passage. This quartet was first called the Warlocks, then the Falling Spikes. The band immediately The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico unanimously adopted The Velvet Underground as its new name in November Their music was generally much more relaxed than it would later become: Cale described this era as reminiscent of beat poetry, with MacLise playing gentle "pitter and patter rhythms behind the drone". In JulyReed, Cale and Morrison recorded a demo tape at their Ludlow Street loft without MacLise, because he refused to be tied down to a schedule and would turn up to band practice sessions only when he wanted. Nothing ever came of this, but the demo was eventually released The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico the box set Peel Slowly and See. When they decided to take the gig, MacLise abruptly left the group, protesting what he considered a sellout ; he was also unwilling to be told when to start and stop playing. Tucker's playing style was rather unusual: she generally played standing up rather than seated and had an abbreviated drum setup of tom- tomssnare and an upturned bass drumusing mallets as often as drumsticks, and rarely using cymbals she admits that she always hated cymbals. After her drums were stolen from one club, she replaced them with garbage cans brought in from outside. Her rhythms, at once simple and exotic influenced by the likes of Babatunde Olatunji and Bo Diddley recordsbecame a vital part of the group's music, despite Cale's initial objections to the presence of a female drummer. Warhol's reputation helped the band gain a higher profile. He helped the band secure a recording contract with MGM's Verve Records, with himself as nominal " producer ", and gave the Velvets free rein over the sound they created. During their stay with Andy Warhol, the band became part of his multimedia roadshow, Exploding Plastic Inevitablewhich combined Warhol's films with the band's music, which made use of minimalist devices, such as drones. Warhol included the band with his show in an effort to "use rock as a part of a larger, interdisciplinary-art The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico based around performance" McDonald. Because of the punishing lights, the band took to wearing sunglasses onstage. This soon changed to "the exploding plastic inevitable". For these appearances, Cale sang and played organ, Tucker switched to bass guitar and MacLise was on drums. Also The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico these appearances, the band often played an extended jam they had dubbed "Booker T", after musician Booker T. Some of these performances The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico been released as a bootleg ; they remain the only record of MacLise with the Velvet Underground. According to Morrison, MacLise is said to have regretted leaving the Velvet Underground and wanted to rejoin, but Reed specifically prohibited this and made it clear that this stint was only temporary. MacLise still behaved eccentrically with time and commerce and went by his own clock: for instance, he showed up half an hour late to one show and carried on with a half-hour of drumming to compensate for his late arrival, long after the set had finished. Also enclosed was a 2-sided flexi disk : side one produced by Peter Walkera musical associate of Timothy Leary ; and side two titled "Loop", credited to the Velvet Underground but actually recorded by Cale alone. The album was released by Verve Records the following year in March The album cover is famous for its Warhol design: a yellow banana sticker with "Peel slowly and see" printed near the tip. Those who did remove the banana skin found a pink, peeled banana beneath. A technique used on many songs was the "drone strum", an eighth- note rhythm guitar style used by Reed. Despite his proficiency on the instrument, Morrison hated playing bass. The album was released on March 12, after a lengthy delay by Verveand reached No. The album was re-distributed at nearly the same time as Sgt. They did not release it for almost a year. He saw no talent in Lou [Reed]. Nico moved on after the Velvets severed their relationship with Andy Warhol. Reed once commented on their leaving Warhol: "He sat down and had a talk with me. Do you want to keep just playing museums from now on and the art festivals? Or do you want to start moving into other areas? Lou, don't you think you should think about it? Because I thought that was one of the things to do if we were going to move away from that…" [38] Steve Sesnick was soon brought The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico as a replacement manager, The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico to the chagrin of Cale, who believes that Sesnick tried to push Reed as band leader at the expense of band harmony. Both Cale and Reed called Sesnick a "snake" in different interviews after leaving the band. The band performed live often, and their performances became louder and harsher and often included extended improvisations. Warhol arranged for the band to get an endorsement deal with Vox to enable them to use Vox equipment, including special effects pedals and an organ, for free. There was fantastic leakage 'cause everyone was playing so loud and we had so much electronic junk with us in the studio—all these fuzzers and compressors. Gary Kellgrenwho is ultra-competent, told us The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico "You can't do it—all the needles are on red. Just do the best you can. We had the energy and the electronics, but we didn't know it couldn't be recorded The album was released on January 30,entering the Billboard The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico chart for two weeks, at number Tensions were growing: the group was tired of receiving little recognition for its work, and Reed and Cale were pulling the Velvet Underground in different directions. The differences showed in the last recording sessions the band had with John Cale in three pop -like songs in Reed's direction "Temptation Inside Your Heart", "Stephanie Says" and "Beginning to See the Light" and a viola-driven drone in Cale's direction "Hey Mr. Further, some songs the band had performed with Cale in concert, or The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico he had co- written, were not recorded until after he had left the group such as "Walk It and Talk It", "Ride into the Sun", and "Countess from Hong Kong". Reed called Morrison and Tucker to a meeting at the Riviera Cafe in the West Village without Cale's knowledge, and informed them that Cale was out of the band; when Morrison objected, Reed said it was either Cale was sacked or the Velvets were dissolved. According to Tim Mitchell, however, Morrison reported that while there was creative tension between Reed and Cale, its effects have been exaggerated over the years. According to Michael Carlucci, a friend of Robert Quine"Lou told Quine that the reason why he had to get rid of Cale in the band was Cale's ideas were just too out there. Cale had some wacky ideas. He wanted to record the next album with the amplifiers underwater, and [Lou] just couldn't have it. He was trying to make the band more accessible. Before work on their third album started, Cale was replaced by musician of the Boston group the Grass Menagerie, who had been a close associate of the band. It was during this period that Morrison heard Yule playing guitar in his apartment, and mentioned to Reed that Yule was practicing guitar and was improving quickly. It was released in March The cover photograph was taken by Billy Name. Released on March 12,the album failed to make Billboard' s Top album chart. The harsh, abrasive tendencies on the first two records were almost entirely absent on their third album. This resulted in a gentler sound influenced by folk musicprescient of the songwriting style that would soon form Reed's solo career. While Reed had covered a vast range of lyrical subjects on the first two Velvet Underground albums, the lyrical themes of the third album were more "intimate" in nature. The personal tone of the album's subject matter resulted in Reed's desire to create a "closet" mix that boosted the vocals to the forefront, while reducing the album's instrumentation. Another factor in the change of sound was the band's Vox amplifiers and assorted fuzzboxes were rumored to have been stolen from an airport while they were on tour and they obtained replacements by signing a new endorsement deal with Sunn. In addition, Reed and Morrison had purchased matching Fender string electric guitarsbut Doug Yule plays down the influence of the new equipment. Morrison's ringing guitar parts and Yule's melodic bass guitar and harmony vocals are used prominently on the album. The Velvet Underground spent much of on the road both in the US and Canada, and The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico making much headway commercially. Despite these commercial setbacks, the band focused on performing live shows on the road, playing both re-worked songs from their past albums, and debuting new songs that would find their way onto the Loaded album, such as "New Age", "", and "". While the band continued to do extended improvisations in their live shows, by they were focusing on tight live performances, [ citation needed ] and several of the live shows the band played during this period would end up released as live albums many years later. Nelson asked singer-songwriter Elliott Murphy to write liner notes for the double album. In his notes, Murphy described a scene years in the future, with a student taking a class on "classical rock'n'roll" and listening to the Velvet Underground. He wondered what the student would make The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico the music and concluded, "I wish it was a hundred years from today I can't stand the suspense ". During this period the band played a series The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico shows in November at the Matrix and the Family Dog venues in San Francisco; recordings of these shows were released inas a triple live album, Bootleg Series Volume 1: The Quine Tapeswhich included the line up of Reed, Yule, Morrison and Tucker. During the band recorded on and off in the studio, creating a lot of promising material both singles and one-offs that were never officially released at the time due to disputes with their record label. What many consider to be the prime songs of these recording sessions were released years later, inin a compilation album called VU. The album VU marks the transitional sound between the whisper-soft third album and the band's movement to the later pop rock song-style of their final record, Loaded. The rest of the recordings, as well as some alternative takes and instrumental tracks were later bundled on which was released in By the MGM and Verve record labels had been losing money for several years. A new president, Mike Curbwas hired and he decided to cancel the recording contracts of 18 of their acts who supposedly glorified drugs in their lyrics, including their The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico controversial and unprofitable acts. The drug or hippie -related bands were released from MGM; nonetheless MGM insisted on retaining ownership of all master tapes of their recordings and according to an MGM representative in a Rolling Stone article from"it wasn't eighteen groups, [Curb] was misquoted. The cuts were made partly to do with the drug scene—like maybe a third of them had to do with drug reasons. The others were dropped because they weren't selling. Cotillion Records a subsidiary of Atlantic Records that specialized in blues and Southern soul The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico the Velvet Underground for what would be its final studio album with Lou Reed: The Velvet Undergrounds The Velvet Underground and Nico. The album's title refers to Atlantic's request that the band produce an album "loaded with hits". Though the record was not the smash hit the company had anticipated, it contains the most accessible pop the Velvet Underground had performed, [ according to whom? By the recording of LoadedDoug Yule played a more prominent role in the band, and with Reed's encouragement, sang the lead vocal on four songs: "Who Loves the Sun", which opened the album, "New Age", "Lonesome Cowboy Bill" and the final track, "Oh! Sweet Nuthin". Yule once commented on the recording of Loaded : "Lou leaned on me a lot in terms of musical support and for harmonies, vocal arrangements. I did a lot on Loaded. It sort of devolved down to the Lou and Doug recreational recording. While the third Velvets' LP was recorded mostly live in a collaborative atmosphere, the bulk of Loaded was crafted in the studio. In addition to handling all the bass and piano duties on LoadedYule also contributed several lead guitar parts and played drums on five of the album's ten tracks most notably on the songs "Rock and Roll" and "Sweet Jane" [61] since who was credited as the album's drummer was absent on maternity leave to have her first child, a daughter named Kerry. Other drum parts were performed by engineer Adrian Barbersession musician Tommy Castanaro, and Billy Yule Doug Yule's younger brotherwho was still in high school at the time.