The Velvet Underground & Nico

Most of the album was recorded in four days in mid-April 1966 at Scepter Studios in Manhattan, paid for by Warhol and the Columbia Records sales executive Norman Dolph, who co-engineered with John Licata. Columbia, Atlantic and Elektra all turned down the acetate. Verve accepted it with the help of its staff producer Tom Wilson. In May 1966 three songs, I’m Waiting for the Man, Venus in Furs and Heroin, were re-recorded at TTG Studios in Hollywood, and in November Wilson brought the band to Mayfair Recording Studios in Manhattan to add Sunday Morning.

Warhol is the credited producer, with Wilson credited on Sunday Morning, but their roles are disputed. Cale recalled that Wilson produced nearly all of it and that Warhol did nothing, while Morrison described Warhol as producer in the sense of producing a film. Nico sang lead on Femme Fatale, All Tomorrow’s Parties and I’ll Be Your Mirror, and backing vocals on Sunday Morning. Reed wrote most of the lyrics, and Cale’s viola and Reed’s ostrich guitar tuning, with all strings set to the same pitch class, shape Venus in Furs and All Tomorrow’s Parties.

The cover is Warhol’s banana, with a sticker that read “Peel slowly and see” and a pink banana beneath. The back cover showed the actor Eric Emerson projected behind the band. He threatened to sue, MGM recalled copies and halted distribution until his image could be airbrushed out, and copies already printed were sold with a black sticker over it.

The album entered the Billboard albums chart on 13 May 1967 at 199. After the recall it returned in November and peaked at 171 in December. Record stores banned it and many radio stations would not play it. Reviews were mixed. Richard Goldstein of the Village Voice wrote that the Velvets were an important group and that the album had major work in it, and singled out Heroin as seven minutes of genuine 12-tone rock and roll. In 1977 Christgau wrote that it never stopped getting better. The Library of Congress added it to the National Recording Registry in 2006, and it entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008. Pitchfork placed it first on its 2017 list of the best albums of the 1960s. Eno’s remark that everyone who bought it started a band has been repeated often, though the sales figure behind it has been questioned.