Andrew Maguire
Mr. Sloan
AP English Language
25 March 2012
The Legacy of the Velvet Underground
The first thing that attracted me to the
Velvet Underground was their name. It sounded like the kind of place where
there were unspoken rules of etiquette-the kind of place where it would take
your eyes a minute to adjust to the dim surroundings. The second thing that
attracted me to the Velvet Underground was how they sucked. It didn’t sound
like the band members were unaware of their own suck, but more like they were
sounding amateur on purpose. The third thing that attracted me to the Velvet
Underground was Lou Reed’s singing voice. He wasn’t a good singer-in fact, most
of the time it sounded like he was just speaking vaguely in rhythm. But the
inflection in his tone was something I had never heard before. It was beyond
sarcasm, beyond despair, on to something more like complete emotional resignation.
At
the time when I first listened to them, all I knew is that they were from 1960’s
New York City. My Dad had grown up there and he had mentioned them once or twice.
Having an affinity for all things New York, I researched further into them and
was surprised to find that they were ranked #19 on Rolling Stone Magazine’s 100
Greatest Artists of All Time (RollingStone.com). You would have had to live on
an Amish farm your whole life to not have heard of the artists ranked above
them-the Beatles, Elvis Presely, Bob Marley, etc. I considered myself pretty
musically savvy, but I couldn’t name a single song by the Velvet Underground.
Upon further research, I found that nowhere could you read about the band
without seeing the terms “pop art” and “avant-garde.” Immediately I was very
skeptical.
I
am a music lover, along with pretty much everyone else who isn’t deaf. But
words the terms “pop art” and “avant-garde” are subjects worthy enough to have
a textbook written about them. In my opinion, if someone decided to write a
textbook on the band Led Zeppelin, it would inevitably turn into a rant by some
bloated fan about why Jimmy Paige was the coolest guitarist ever. There are
legitimate books written about the Beatles because they had a broad cultural
impact. There is multiple different aspects of the Beatles’ influence. The
purpose of this research paper is to determine for myself the extent of the
Velvet Underground’s influence.
I
interviewed John Costa, professor of Rock ‘n’ Roll History at the University of
Utah, on the subject. Towards the end of the interview he said, “In my course,
it doesn’t matter what I like, what matters is what constitutes as a legitimate
object of study, and the benchmark is the degree of influence and originality.”
(Costa) He was able to break down the VU’s influence into three specific things
that nobody but the Velvet Underground was doing at the time. The fact that
Costa was able to break it down so objectively, I think, speaks of the
legitimacy of this subject. The first was their employment of post-modernism,
the second was challenging conventional success, and the third was extreme
expression. (Costa)
Post-modernism
is a type of art in which high art, the avant-garde, is synthesized with low
art, pop art. (Costa) In this sense, art is classified by the social class of
the artist, sort of like how the car company Lexus is defined by their
producing of a luxury vehicle, while Toyota is defined by their producing of a
utility vehicle. The Velvet Underground’s work qualifies as post-modernism
because the two primary creative forces behind the band, Lou Reed and John
Cale, were both employing techniques of the avant-garde in a pop art format.
Lou Reed, the singer and lyricist, was heavily influenced by a writer named
Raymond Chandler whose use of opposing, contradictory elements were part of a high
art literary movement. (Costa) So Reed applied that literary method to his
poetry about sexual sadomasochism in the song, “Venus In Furs,” in which he
sings, “strike, dear mistress, and cure his heart.” (Costa) Literally, he’s
singing about a woman whipping her submissive sexual partner, but the syntax of
that lyric is that which could have been used in a Shakespeare play. That
contradiction of the subject material being 20th century debauchery
that is being expressed in old-fashioned romantic prose is an example of Reed’s
post-modernism.
John
Cale was a classically trained viola player from Whales with an affinity for
American rock ‘n’ roll music. He had worked with artists named La Monte Young
and Terry Riley, both of whom were pioneers in the avant-garde western
classical movement called minimalism. (Costa) From them, John Cale learned the
two-note drone, which he employed in the song, “Heroin.” (Costa) For this song,
John Cale filed down the neck of a viola, then manipulate the instrument in a
way that produced, as he put it, “a noise very similar to a B-52.” (Youtube.com,
VELVET UNDERGROUND Documentary (Part 1 of 2)) I would describe it as sounding
more like the engine of a giant rusty freight train exerting all its force on a
little hamster wheel. That’s really what the song is about. If that giant
engine is the destructive power of heroin and that squeaky hamster wheel is the
human body, then I’d say that song aurally depicts the torture of drug
addiction pretty accurately.
“Heroin,”
is an assault on the human sensory system, and indeed it was meant to offend
the listener, which brings me to John Costa’s second point: the Velvet
Underground’s complete disregard for commercial success. (Costa) I conducted a
survey about the band and found that 50% of the participants said they had
never heard of the Velvet Underground, and 71% said they had never listened to
the Velvet Underground. (SurveyMonkey.com, The
Velvet Underground) Their best-selling album, Loaded, had only sold about 500,000 copies total in the 20 years
after its release. (“The Velvet
Underground”) Compare that to Adele’s album, 21, selling 17 million copies in its first year. (“21(Adele album)”) The VU’s record label requested
that they change the lyrics on their debut, The
Velvet Underground & Nico, which included, “Heroin,” and, “Venus In
Furs.” (Costa) They also requested that the band change the album artwork because
it was too offensive (the album artwork consisted of a paper-thin piece of
plastic attached to the cover in the shape of a banana that, when peeled,
revealed a pink inner-banana, thus having obvious sexual connotations). (Costa)
But the band simply refused because, as their rhythm-guitarist Sterling Morrison
said, “We didn’t care if it never got out of the four walls that we were in.”
(Youtube.com, VELVET UNDERGROUND Documentary (Part 2 of 2))
The
point of this story is not to prove how cool the Velvet Underground was. The
point is that they had no illusions of commercial success, and consequently
they were free to “live by the art”(Costa). The emergence of punk music later
on would be dependent upon the Velvet Underground setting that precedent.
Another
precedent set by the Velvet Underground that profoundly influenced punk music
was extreme expression, the third point of my interviewee. “The idea was it
didn’t matter if you could play. It didn’t matter what your skill level was.
What mattered was not only what you were saying, but how extreme by which you
were saying it.” (Costa) Mo Tucker had, “no training whatsoever,” in playing
drums. (Youtube.com, VELVET UNDERGROUND Documentary (Part 1 of 2)) She didn’t
own a full drum set, so when she played with the Velvet Underground, she played
standing upright using only a bass drum turned on its side, a snare, and a few
tom toms. (“Maureen Tucker”) But it
was her lack of musicianship and her increased physical leverage, due to the
fact that she was standing, that afforded her the aggressive, primitive drum
style that she was known for. That was extreme expression. White Light/White Heat, the bands second album, was actively
raucous, even more so than their first. During the recording, amplifiers were
stacked facing each other in order to achieve the maximum amount of feedback.
(Youtube.com, VELVET UNDERGROUND Documentary (Part 2 of 2)) Concurrently, Lou
Reed was delving further into drug abuse, and consequently, writing lyrics
about even more perverse subjects such as prostitution and even amateur
lobotomies. (“The Velvet Underground”)
For obvious reasons, the band could not sustain itself for very long in this
state and it splintered shortly thereafter. (Costa)
Still,
I was skeptical about their influence. Perhaps no other band was pushing the envelope
like the Velvet Underground at the time,
but certainly they were not the first artists from New York who incorporated
elements of post-modernism in their work. George Gershwin composed “Rhapsody In
Blue,” in New York in 1924-an orchestral piece that incorporated both elements
of classical music, considered to be high art, and jazz music, which was
considered to be music of the hoi polloi (“Rhapsody
In Blue”). Bob Dylan, who was a contemporary of the VU but whom had gotten
to New York just a few years earlier, wrote in his memoir, “I guess you could
say [my songs] weren’t commercial. Not only that, my style was too erratic and
hard to pigeonhole for the radio, and my songs, too me, were more important
that just light entertainment.” (Dylan 34) Is this not the same
‘art-first-and-foremost’ mentality that defined John Costa’s second point about
the Velvet Underground? Interestingly enough, John Cale had his own opinions on
Bob Dylan. “I was really fed-up with folk music-Dylan stuff and Joan Baez stuff-I
was quite disinterested in songs that had nothing but questions in them.” (Youtube.com,
VELVET UNDERGROUND Documentary (Part 1 of 2))
It is important to note that by the time The Velvet Underground & Nico was
being recorded, Bob Dylan’s music had already become anthems of the US Civil
Rights movement (“Bob Dylan”), John
F. Kennedy had already been assassinated (Brinkley 822), and Andy Warhol was
the VU’s manager and sponsor (Costa). More than that, Andy Warhol was the man
who discovered the band and who encouraged them to be as offensive as possible.
(Costa) This is because Warhol was a dissenter of the 60’s optimism that was
manifesting itself on the west coast of the United States. (Costa) According to
Matthew Bannister’s essay, “I’m Set
Free…”, which appeared in the academic journal, Popular Music & Society, the Velvet Underground represented
everything the west coast culture wasn’t. (3) They sang about free love, the
Velvet Underground sang about S&M. They sang about hallucinogens, the
Velvet Underground sang about hard drugs. While Bob Dylan’s songs were being
used to garner youth support for a social revolution, Lou Reed was singing, “I
want to nullify my life.”
Andy
Warhol’s and the Velvet Underground’s dissention of the west coast culture was
largely because of the fact that they were from New York. Madison Avenue had
been the advertising capital of the United States since the 1920’s (“Madison Avenue”) , and consequently, a
headquarters of villainy in the eyes of the youth culture that was disenchanted
with consumerism, much like how Wall Street has become identified as the target
of civil unrest today. The businessmen on Madison Avenue were manufacturing the
optimism spreading throughout the United States.
Lou
Reed can be quoted saying, “The Lou Reed New York attitude is just the New York
attitude. You can find lots of people with it…there’s no moral stance to these
songs, it was just ‘this happened then that happened,’ presented kind of dry,
unemotionally.” (Youtube.com, VELVET UNDERGROUND Documentary (Part 2 of 2)) Andy
Warhol was heavily influenced by advertising and consumerism, which is why some
of his most famous works included Campbell’s® tomato soup cans, or Coca-Cola®
bottles. Rather than reject the ideals of consumerism, like the artists of the
folk music revival such as Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, Andy Warhol and the Velvet
Underground accepted them by using them as a format for serious art.
When
David Bowie first heard the Velvet Underground’s music in acetate format, he
viewed it as the first time rock ‘n’ roll music was being taken as serious art.
(Costa) Brian Eno can be quoted as saying, “Everyone who heard The Velvet Underground & Nico either
formed their own band or became a music critic.” (“The Velvet Underground”) These two notions effectively summarize
degree of the band’s influence.
Popular
music is shaped by those who take it seriously. In my time, artists like The
White Stripes, Lady Gaga, Radiohead, The Strokes, and Kanye West have all
attempted to make serious art out of pop music. When The Velvet Underground & Nico came out, the United States had
only experienced roughly 21 years of the post-WWII affluence that has come to
define American culture. Nobody could have known the extent to which popular
music would shape American culture, but the Velvet Underground were one of the
first indicators of just how seriously the forthcoming generation was taking
simple pop music.
Popular
music is shaped by those who push the envelope. The emergence of punk music was
all about pushing the envelope, and it was extremely pivotal because it marked
a point when youth culture became violently self-aware of the differences
between itself and its parental culture. In a way, punk music is an extension
of American individualist ideals because it rids youth of their final and most
intimate collectivist obligation-the parents. The Velvet Underground undermined
the idea that one had to meet any sort of standard in order to push the
envelope.
Works
Cited
“100
Greatest Artists of All Time.” Rolling
Stone. WENNER MEDIA, n.d., Web. 26 March 2012
Costa,
John. Personal Interview. 19 March 2012
britbluesfan.
“VELVET UNDERGROUND Documentary (Part 1 of 2).” Youtube.com. n.p., 11 Feb 2011. Web. 26 March 2012
Maguire,
Andrew. “The Velvet Underground.” Survey. SurveyMonkey.
n.p. 15 March 2012 Web. 26 March 2012
“The
Velvet Underground.” St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. Ed. Sara
Pendergast and Tom Pendergast. Detroit: St. James Press, 2000. Gale
Biography In Context. Web. 15 Feb 2012
“21 (Adele album).” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia
Foundation, Inc., 25 March 2012. Web. 26 March 2012
britbluesfan.
“VELVET UNDERGROUND Documentary (Part 2 of 2).” Youtube.com. n.p., 11 Feb 2011. Web. 26 March 2012
“Maureen Tucker.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia
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“Rhapsody In Blue.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia
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Dylan,
Bob. Chronicles: Volume One. New
York: SIMON & SCHUSTER, 2004. Print.
“Bob Dylan.” Wikipedia:
The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., 25 March 2012. Web. 26
March 2012
Brinkley,
Alan. AMERICAN HISTORY: A SURVEY, Twelfth
Ed., New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007. Print.
Bannister M. “I'm Set Free...”: The Velvet Underground, 1960s
Counterculture, and Michel Foucault. Popular Music & Society [serial online].
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Accessed March 26, 2012.
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