The Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground & Nico (picture disc) [VINYL LOVERS]

Why you'll love it

This EU-pressed picture disc puts the artwork right on the vinyl. Rolling Stone placed the album at No. 13 on its 500 Greatest Albums list in 2003, and the Library of Congress added it to the National Recording Registry in 2006.

This edition

• Picture disc
• Stereo mix
• Pressed in the EU

About the album

Brian Eno once said that about 30,000 people bought this album in its first five years, and that every one of them started a band. Andy Warhol paid for the sessions, took the producer credit and designed the famous banana cover, and the band cut most of it in four days in April 1966 at Scepter Studios in Manhattan, with Verve putting it out in March 1967.

Lou Reed's songs sit at the centre, with John Cale's viola, Sterling Morrison's guitar and Maureen Tucker's drums around them. Warhol brought in the German singer Nico, who takes the lead on "Femme Fatale," "All Tomorrow's Parties" and "I'll Be Your Mirror" and adds backing vocals to "Sunday Morning," the last song recorded, in November 1966. "I'm Waiting For The Man," "Venus In Furs" and the long "European Son To Delmore Schwartz" go further out than almost anything else from that year.

Its drones, feedback and plain-spoken songs run straight through punk, post-punk and indie rock, and Warhol's banana is still one of the most recognized sleeves in the racks. Not bad for a record cut in four days, which is less time than some of us take to choose new trousers.

Also at Kops: more The Velvet Underground on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Vinyl Lovers (cat# 999051), a reissue of the 1967 album.