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Nico

A German model and actress turned singer who gave the Velvet Underground's first album its cold voice, then made three records alone with a harmonium that sound like nothing else in rock.

Origin
Cologne, Germany
Years active
1938-1988
Genres
baroque pop, avant-folk, folk rock
Labels
Immediate, Verve, Elektra, Reprise, Island, Beggars Banquet, Flicknife
Also known as
Christa Paffgen

From model to singer

Nico was born Christa Paffgen in Cologne on October 16, 1938 and died on Ibiza on July 18, 1988, at 49, after falling from her bicycle and suffering a cerebral hemorrhage; local doctors first took it for heat exposure. She grew up near Berlin, modeled there, and was spotted at 16 by the photographer Herbert Tobias, who gave her the name Nico after the filmmaker Nico Papatakis, with whom she lived in New York from 1959 to 1961.

Before music came film. She appeared as herself in Fellini's La Dolce Vita, studied acting with Lee Strasberg, and in 1962 was on the cover of Bill Evans's Moon Beams. In 1965 she made a single for Andrew Loog Oldham's Immediate label, I'm Not Sayin', produced by Jimmy Page, and met Brian Jones, who later introduced her to Andy Warhol. Warhol put her in his 1966 film Chelsea Girls and in the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, where she sang with the Velvet Underground; she took the lead on three songs of their first album, released in March 1967.

Chelsea Girl

Her first solo album, Chelsea Girl, came out on Verve in October 1967, produced by Tom Wilson and recorded at Mayfair Recording in Manhattan in the spring. Songs came from Jackson Browne, Bob Dylan and Tim Hardin, and from Lou Reed, John Cale and Sterling Morrison, who all played on it. Strings and flutes were added by the arranger Larry Fallon without her. She said in 1981 that she could not listen to it, and that her requests for drums and more guitar were refused.

The record is nonetheless the most graceful of the set: Pitchfork's Quinn Moreland gave it 8.9 out of 10 in 2017, and AllMusic has called it an unqualified masterpiece in a retrospective.

The harmonium years

After Verve let her go, Danny Fields persuaded Elektra to sign her. She had bought a harmonium in San Francisco in 1968, partly, Julian Cope writes, because she did not want to rely on guitarists, whom she called unreliable people to work with. The Marble Index, recorded in September 1968 on a $10,000 budget over four days, put her voice and that harmonium at the center. Frazier Mohawk is the credited producer, but John Cale was the de facto producer and arranger, working around an instrument he found badly out of tune. Jac Holzman agreed to release it after she played it to him.

It went largely unnoticed. Lester Bangs called it the greatest avant-garde classical music of the late twentieth century and a self-torture to hear, and NME's 2005 reissue review called it bleak but beautiful. Domino reissued it in March 2024, mastered from the original tapes. Desertshore followed on Reprise on December 20, 1970, produced by Cale and Joe Boyd and recorded at Sound Techniques in London, with Cale playing everything except trumpet; its cover images are stills from Philippe Garrel's film The Inner Scar, in which she starred. The End..., on Island in 1974, again produced by Cale, added Brian Eno on synthesizer and Phil Manzanera on guitar, and included her version of the German anthem.

The later years

Island dropped her in 1975 and she lived through the 1980s in London and Manchester, struggling with a heroin addiction of more than fifteen years. She made Drama of Exile in 1981, toured with the Blue Orchids and then the Faction, recorded a single of Procession with Martin Hannett, and in 1985 made Camera Obscura with Cale producing. She opened for Tangerine Dream at Reims Cathedral on December 13, 1974 and played a celebrated 1974 concert at London's Rainbow Theatre with Eno, Cale and Kevin Ayers. Her last studio recording, Your Kisses Burn with Marc Almond, was made weeks before her death.

She is cited by Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Cure, Morrissey and Elliott Smith. Biographers and associates also report racist and antisemitic remarks that cost her work, a record some of her associates dispute. Books about her include James Young's Songs They Never Play on the Radio and Jennifer Otter Bickerdike's You Are Beautiful and You Are Alone, and the 2018 film Nico, 1988 starred Trine Dyrholm.

Records

Songs

The Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, Brian Eno, Jackson Browne, Siouxsie and the Banshees

Where to go next

Reference

  • Nico The fullest biography, with discography, books and film.

Discography and data

Writing and criticism

Live performance archives

Sources

  1. Nico, Wikipedia
  2. Chelsea Girl, Wikipedia
  3. The Marble Index, Wikipedia
  4. Desertshore, Wikipedia
  5. The End..., Wikipedia
  6. Chelsea Girls (song), Wikipedia
  7. Nico: The Marble Index, Head Heritage
  8. Nico The Marble Index, NME (2005-09-12)
  9. Nico reissues, FLOOD (2024-03-27)
  10. Nico's song for Brian Jones, Far Out (2025-03-23)