The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground emerged from New York's mid-1960s avant-garde scene as rock music's most uncompromising experimentalists. Formed in 1964 by Lou Reed and John Cale, with Sterling Morrison, Maureen Tucker, and later Nico, the band operated under Andy Warhol's patronage, performing at his Factory and multimedia Exploding Plastic Inevitable events. Their 1967 debut The Velvet Underground & Nico confronted audiences with Reed's narratives of drug addiction, sadomasochism, and urban alienation, set against Cale's droning viola and feedback squalls.

The group pioneered minimalism in rock through Tucker's metronomic drumming and Cale's classical training in LaMonte Young's Theatre of Eternal Music. Despite commercial indifference and radio hostility, albums like White Light/White Heat (1968) and the pastoral The Velvet Underground (1969) established templates for punk, post-punk, and alternative rock. Brian Eno famously suggested that while few bought their records initially, everyone who did formed a band. Their influence permeates decades of guitar music, from Television to The Strokes, validating Reed's vision of rock as legitimate art.