Week 2 Velvet Undergound

The Velvet Underground immersed in an era of increasing social and political divides in the United States and around the world. This idea, that was more popularized as a musical act was a melting pot of many cultural behaviors and symbolism of the revolutionary advant garde ideas that were emerging worldwide. The Velvet Underground were conceivable the brainchild of the culture they sought to diverge from indulging in the mixtures of music, television, radio, fashion, social and spiritual cultures that only recently had become receptive of their existence.

This musical and cultural revolution known as the Velvet Underground developed through the passion of it’s members yet channeled a voice through it’s two founding members John Cale and Lou Reed whose distinctive as well as identifiable characteristics translated universally to it’s followers. Lou Reed being from New York and John Cale from Whales did not influence their ultimate vision but did however defined their backgrounds and approaches to their music.

It was Andy Warhol who already as an established artist was enthralled by Reed and Cale’s elaborate indulgence of pop culture and the advant garde combined with a major musical element forged a sonic representation of the visual elements Warhol had depicted his whole career. Their music was raw and organic with vivid poetry that often subverted the song itself had not for the performance element that Cale and especially Reed used to translate their poetry.

The 1960’s and 70’s flourished as an era of experimentation and discovery ever pressuring the expedition of boundaries once too taboo to cross. Andy Warhol, The Velvet Underground and Nico can be remarked as explorers as well as scientists who reworked theories that humans and the environment as well social elements had doctrine as relative fact in all societies. They experimented visually, atheistically, sonically and social with aspects we as people see as fact and hoped to in a way achieve a new perspective on reality.