Velvet Underground co-founder Lou Reed once saidĀ āif youāre going to talk about greats, there is no one greater than Raymond Chandler. I mean, after reading Raymond Chandler and going on to someone else, itās like eating caviar and then turning to some real inferior dish.ā Lou had a simple plan: toĀ ātake the sensibility of Raymond Chandler or Hubert Shelby (sic) or Delmore Schwartz or Poe and put it to rock music.ā And when he formed the Velvet Underground that was exactly what he did. Taking a cure from film noir and pulp fiction, Reed and company would pull back the curtain that separated pop music from the world beyond āmoon and Juneā love songs, creating in the process a new music veritĆ©āa rock noir, if you will.
Itās a contradiction so glaring it approaches paradox: a band that left its mark on rock music and musicians in a profound way, but who music was purposefully snubbed by the major outlets. Industry inertia was nearly comprehensive: record stores, radio stations, the music press, promoters, the marketing personnel and bean counters of the record labels who controlled the crucial distribution networks. Put simply, these people could not deal with this music in 1967, the year of the Summer of Love. Coupled with critical indifference and public hostility, it all spelled an absence of commercial reward for the struggling Velvets. Pick your clichĆ©: They Couldnāt Catch a Break; They Couldnāt Get Arrested; If It Wasnāt for Bad Luck, They Wouldnāt Have No Luck at All.
discoholicmusic
annaxmalina
dededos
tangentwithtanner
prguitarman
izzy806
