The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967)

The Velvet Underground & Nico (commonly referred to as The Banana Album) is the debut studio album by the American rock band the Velvet Underground and the German singer Nico, released by Verve Records in March 1967. The album was recorded in 1966 on Ludlow Street, New York while the band were featured on Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable tour. Warhol, who designed the album's record sleeve, served as co-producer alongside Tom Wilson.

The Velvet Underground & Nico features elements of avant-garde music incorporated into brash, minimal and groove-driven rock music. Lead singer and songwriter Lou Reed delivers explicit lyrics spanning themes of drug abuse, prostitution, sadomasochism and urban life. Due to its abrasive, unconventional sound and controversial lyrical content, the album underperformed commercially and polarized critics upon release. Various record stores banned the album, many radio stations refused to play it, and magazines refused to carry advertisements for it.

In the following decades, The Velvet Underground & Nico received widespread critical acclaim, being regarded as ahead of its time, and was included on numerous all-time best album lists. The Observer placed it at No. 1 in their list of the "50 Albums That Changed Music" and Pitchfork ranked it as the best album of the 1960s. It has been characterized as the original art-rock record, influencing many subgenres of rock and alternative music, including punk, garage rock, krautrock, post-punk, post-rock, noise rock, shoegaze, gothic rock, art punk, and indie rock.

The Velvet Underground & Nico continues to be lauded as one of the most important albums in rock and pop music. In 2006, it was inducted into the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2008, it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, honoring recordings of "lasting qualitative or historical significance". Despite its poor sales, the album is certified platinum in the United Kingdom for sales of over 300,000 copies. In 2023, Billboard ranked the album No. 1 on its list of "The 100 Best Album Covers of All Time."

Recording

The Velvet Underground & Nico was recorded in a rehearsal studio on Ludlow Street, New York. It was recorded with the first professional line-up of the Velvet Underground, consisting of guitarist and vocalist Lou Reed; violist, keyboardist, and bassist John Cale; guitarist and bassist Sterling Morrison; and drummer Maureen Tucker. At the instigation of their mentor and manager Andy Warhol and his collaborator Paul Morrissey, German singer Nico was also featured; she had occasionally performed lead vocals for the band. She sang lead on three of the album's tracks—"Femme Fatale", "All Tomorrow's Parties" and "I'll Be Your Mirror"—and back-up on "Sunday Morning". In 1966, as the album was being recorded, this was also the line-up for the band's live performances as a part of Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable.