The Velvet Underground & Nico: self-titled (peelable cover) [VERVE]

Why you'll love it

This pressing reproduces Andy Warhol's famous peelable banana cover. The album barely sold on arrival, but as Brian Eno joked, everyone who bought a copy started a band. It's one of the most influential records ever made.

This edition

• Andy Warhol banana cover with peelable sticker
• Single LP, 11 tracks
• Verve pressing of the 1967 album

About the album

When it came out in 1967, The Velvet Underground & Nico sold next to nothing. It was too dark, too noisy, too honest about the seedy side of New York for the Summer of Love. Lou Reed sang about the city's underbelly, John Cale sawed away on a droning electric viola, Moe Tucker pounded tom-toms standing up, Sterling Morrison held it all together, and Andy Warhol, their patron and nominal producer, insisted they add the icy German chanteuse Nico.

And yet half of modern music grew out of it: punk, post-punk, indie, noise, shoegaze. For every gorgeous lullaby ("Sunday Morning," "I'll Be Your Mirror," "Femme Fatale") there's a wall of feedback ("Heroin," "European Son"), and "I'm Waiting for the Man" is basically the template for every garage band since. This pressing even lets you peel the banana. Go on, you know you want to.

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

Tracklist

Listen

On Verve, a reissue of the 1967 album.