The Velvet Underground are one of the most important and influent bands of all times. They were the soul of the subterranean alternative culture, the roots of the metropolitan rock of the white people, but also the pioneer of the punk and new wave movements. 

Their birth was deeply influenced by the New York alternative atmosphere of the Sixties: a melting pot of avant-gardes, artists and underground clubs. In the early Sixties, Lou Reed (alias Louis Firbank, born in Freeport, Long Island, NY) went studying poetry at the Syracuse University. He played in several New York rock bands with his college mate Sterling Morrison. And in New York he met another "damned genius": John Cale (born in Cwmamman, Galles), a student who had moved to the States in order to work with Leonard Bernstein and experiment with different arts. Together they formed a band that was called Primitives, then Warlocks and eventually The Velvet Undeground (from the title of a pornographic novel).

In 1965 Reed, Morrison, Cale and the percussionist Angus McLise (already in the entourage of the avant-garde composer La Monte Young) founded the nucleus of the Velvet Underground, recording (under the name of Underground) some demos destined to be included in the 5-cd box "Peel Slowly And See" of 1995. Some of these songs were masterpieces such as "Venus In Furs", "Black Angel's Death Song" and "Heroin".

But the harsh sound of the early Velvet Underground didn't help them to find a record company. So they needed the "underground" concerts. They played at the Café Bizarre, in the Greenwich Village. But their lyrics were too scandalous. One night, despite a specific prohibition, they played "Black angel's death song" and were immediately fired. But that night they found a new fan, an artist who was already famous in the New York underground. He was called Andy Warhol. The master of pop art became the band's guide, engaging them in a multi-media show entitled "The exploding plastic inevitable". The band got a mysterious and dark look and replaced McLise with the new drummer Maureen "Moe" Tucker. But Warhol himself decided the main change, forcing the group to accept his favourite chanteuse: Nico, a German blond-haired singer with a dark voice and an experience as top model and actress (also in "La Dolce vita" of Federico Fellini). 

This magic ensemble created The Velvet Underground and Nico (1967), one of the most important albums in the whole rock history. Marked by the famous Warhol's banana on the cover, it's a revolutionary work, many miles away from rock mainstream of that time. The album's atmosphere, decadent and dark, swam against the current of the "peace and love" fashions and flower power ideology. Almost ignored by the masses, "The Velvet Underground and Nico" was enthusiastically acclaimed by the critics. Nowadays, thanks to the fame of Lou Reed and the discover of the Velvet Underground, it is universally considered one of the masterpieces of rock. 

The Velvet Underground and Nico is a perfect balance of melody and noise, darkness and light, tenderness and perversion, ballads and bacchanals.

The spectral "Venus in furs" is pervaded by the John Cale's electric viola and by the loud voice of Lou Reed who tells about a vicious and perverse love story. "All tomorrow's parties" is a funeral lullaby sang by Nico in a dark register. "Sunday morning" is apparently a ray of light, but "Heroin" moves you into a deep universe of drugs and desperation. The tender "I'll be your mirror" and the charming "Femme Fatale" anticipate the chaotic sonorous orgy of "Black angel's death song", in which the Minimalist attitude of John Cale emerges.

It's an album that merges rock and blues, psychedelic music and avant-garde. A record that unites the past and the future of rock, so that it became a milestone for all the punk, new wave and even post-rock bands. The imitation attempts are uncountable, so that you can find a piece of The Velvet Underground and Nico in almost every single track of modern rock. So it's easy to agree with the rock critic Federico Guglielmi: "Who doesn't know this record can't ever imagine what the word rock means ".

The Velvet's lyrics were quite rough and scabrous ("Heroin"), they were odes to street life and perversions ("I'm Waiting For The Man", "Venus In Furs", "Run Run Run"). The balance between the creative talent of Reed, the difficult musical theories of  Cale and the spectral voice of Nico was perfect. But the balance ended up soon. The struggle for the band's leadership forced Nico to abandon the group. So the Velvet's music changed with White Light White Heat (1967), increasing the dissonances and the noisy attitude of the group ("Sister Ray", "The Gift" and the title track, reprised by David Bowie some years later), but without forgetting the most unmentionable sides of the human soul ("Lady Godiva's Operation"). But the Velvet were restless. So in 1968 John Cale left the band and was replaced by Doug Yule. So it's the only Reed to compose the Velvet Underground's songs (1969), a punch of gloomy ballads ("Candy Says", "What Goes On", "Some Kinda Love", "Pale Blue Eyes") permeated by a deep melancholy. 

Nevertheless, this album was a flop and the band split up after the recordings of Loaded (1970), a mediocre record despite the hits "Sweet Jane" and "Rock & Roll". The live album The Velvet Undeground Live At Max's Kansas City (1972) and the double 1969 Velvet Underground Live (1974) tried to keep their myth alive. But it was the success of the John Cale and (especially) Lou Reed solo careers to help the masses to discover the early albums of the Velvet Underground. They became a model for the new wave (from Pere Ubu to Joy Division, from Television to Sonic Youth) and got a golden record in the Eighties, after the release of two collection of rare and unpublished tracks (VU and Another View). But a damned spell was put on the band. The group's spiritual guide Andy Warhol died and two early Velvet members, Nico and Sterling Morrison, died in mysterious circumstances. 

In 1990, Cale and Reed join together for the Andy Warhol's tribute Songs for Drella, and tried a reunion of the band with several concerts in the arenas worldwide. Live MCMXCIII (1993) was the celebration of this reunion but didn't avoid a new dissolution. In 1995, Peel Slowly And See a 5 cd box was published. 

The influence of the Velvet Underground on the following generations of rock musicians is indefinably rich. Their sonorous bacchanals, their decadent ballads and their rough and perverse lyrics are a universal model, so that you can't even count the bands whose music can be described using the expression "Velvet Underground".