‘The Velvet Underground & Nico’ Joins Vinylphyle Series
The classic 1967 album is getting a new 180g vinyl pressing as part of the new hi-fidelity vinyl series, Vinylphyle.
The Velvet Underground’s self-titled debut album, one of the most influential albums in rock history, is among the first records to become part of UMe’s new hi-fidelity vinyl series, Vinylphyle.
The album joins other entries in the Vinylphyle series, including Bob Marley & The Wailers’ Exodus and Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song.” Like these releases, it will see a fresh pressing on 180g black vinyl, courtesy of RTI. The release will also be accompanied by a four-panel insert complete with original photos and artwork, plus brand-new liner notes from music critic Anthony Fantano.
Released in 1967, the record was co-produced by Andy Warhol and featured German singer Nico; multi-instrumentalist John Cale; guitarist and lyricist Lou Reed; bassist Sterling Morrison; and percussionist and keyboardist Maureen Tucker. Warhol also made the album’s infamous cover, a pop art-style picture of a banana. The band recorded The Velvet Underground & Nico in 1966, during the band’s time performing as part of Warhol’s series of gesamtkunstwerk events, the Exploding Plastic Inevitable.
Despite its formidable legacy, The Velvet Underground & Nico’s recording process was marred with label rejections, production delays and negative reviews of live shows. It was eventually released on Verve Records, but drew controversy over its stark depictions of drug abuse, prostitution and sadomasochism. Although reported numbers vary, the album did not sell well within its first five years of release–but as Brian Eno famously quipped in 1982, “everyone who bought one of those [early] copies started a band.”
As Eno’s comment illustrates, the record became a lodestar for a generation of new musicians, and songs like “Venus In Furs,” “Heroin,” “Sunday Morning” and “Femme Fatale” are now considered classics. The record also launched the solo careers of both Reed and Cale, some of the late-’60s New York avant-garde’s most prominent figures. The band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, and a decade later, The Velvet Underground & Nico was added to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry.
Buy the Vinylphyle edition of the Velvet Underground & Nico’s debut here.
