Velvet Underground- Punk?

I've started reading Please Kill Me (the oral history of punk) and Velvet Underground is included as one of the punk bands. This confuses me, I've never seen their music as punk. Definitly punks when it come to personality, but not the music. Is there something I'm not getting here? Does anyone else this Velvet Underground does not play punk music?

 

punk doesnt all sound the same...youd probly hear the stooges and not think they're punk.

 

Not sure if they're punk, but that question doesn't really bother me as I like some of their stuff a fair bit regardless.
At the time though during the last heydays of widespread hippy culture, their music was almost the antithesis of hippy preoccupations. Look at the photographs, black type clothes, no tie-dyes anywhere, black glasses.. It was moving in the opposite direction. Songs about darkness, the grime of life.
Even the drugs which generally are specific amongst different subcultures..not writing about LSD or Marijuana, it was things like Heroin.
And the sex? (It is sex, drugs and rock'n'roll after all!) Well they were writing about such things as masochism, whips etc.. in songs like Venus in Furs.

I personally never listened to their music because of these things.. I only learned all of this afterwards, it was the general atmosphere and some of the later songs had some really nice moods to them, bittersweet and stirring.
What I fisrt heard was a ratty old tape in my car which had Waiting For The Man on it, the original recording form late 60's I think. It was repetitive and gritty, quite rhythmic and nearly blues-tinged, and there was a sense in Lou Reed's voice of an exhilerating abandonment to his fate, that he was enjoying what he was singing about in a kind of raw way.
When listening closer it was about waiting for his drug dealer to show up so that he could buy heroin, not exactly a joyful story to tell, but I just liked the sound of it as opposed to the message (whatever that might have been, if anything, I don't really know..)
Gotta love those singers who can't really sing but still pull it off. haha

So anyway, punk or not i'm not sure, but they were certainly different and subversive for their time and era!

 

"So anyway, punk or not i'm not sure, but they were certainly different and subversive for their time and era!"


Yup, and they were great! They were punk-ish in attitude and some rhythms, but they did have very structured tunes also.

 

They just laid down the lifestyle of punk. Remember, the idea of punk was created in one night! By Ralph Mclaren and that Vivian chick.

 

I agree...VU kinda built the foundation. Their music wasn't really "punk" music as we know it with fast chords and all that stuff, but their attitude toward music and the fact that their music was non-mainstream stuff allows them to be mentioned when talking about early punk. If you think about it, who else in the late 60's was singing songs directly dealing with drugs, death and S&M...they were definately alternative.

 

ehh...they were so counter-culture that they were the punk icons of that era. a lot of bands today are considered punk rock, but i only see it because they're anti-everything-that's-considered-good-and-wholesome-in-this-world.

 

many punk bands cite the velvet underground as an influence.... they set the roots of punk rock, they werent necessarily that style, though.... just an influence to the genre.

 

id say them, the stooges and mc5 were some of the first punk bands

 

David Bowie was the first real punk.

 

no

 

The Velvets didn't have much to do musically with The Ramones or Clash or Sex Pistols. The VU were playing decadent, challenging material in the crudest way possible. I would, actually, consider the second side of White Light/White Heat almost punk. Even though I don't think a single punk album is anywhere near as good as WLWH.

Really, the only punk groups influenced by the Velvets, as far as I'm aware of anyway, were the more sophisticated ones in the CBGB scene (Television, The Voidoids, Patti Smith), while for the others it was more like The Stooges, MC5, New York Dolls etc.

The VU really seemed to have had more influence on bands/artists with a more expirimental nature. Can, Bowie, Eno, Kraftwerk, Sonic Youth, Joy Division...

 

They were definatley a strong influence in punk-music

 

"I'm Waiting for the Man," and pretty much all of White Light/White Heat had that sound that The Stooges, New York Dolls, and MC5 copied in their music.

 

One thing is for sure.
That album White Light/White Heat is definately one of the most awesome albums produced in the sixties. So psychedelic and spaced out.
I really love this album. When I first heard it I listened to it every day for like months

 

The Word "punk" used in terms of music and "punk rock" was first used if only rarely to describe lots of bands of the 60s, many of whom the punk rockers of the 70s were into.

and Lou Reed is considered to be the godfather of punk by some.

but bands like on the "nuggets" compilation, the velvet underground, mc5, stooges, new york dolls, early alice cooper, and lots of other stuff like that is considered to be kinda punk. english equivilents such as david bowie and the faces are similar equivilants i guess.

 

Attitude wise, yeah.

Any punks looking for punkish music will be very disappointed though.. their music in the early days is very slow and droney, very weak rhythm section.. their later stuff is mostly really laid-back pop balladeering. But punk and hippie are both things more so about spirit than piegonholing media stereotypes..

 

who cares?

velvet underground is good music, does it really matter what genre they are?

 

I agree, they're on of the roots of punk, but they didn't made real punk. May'be because punk wasn't really a thing then.
I prefer the Velvet underground above any punk band, by the way.

 

This is like calling "The Beatles" hip-hop. They may have influenced some standard beats, but it does not make them fit in the genre.

Anyhow, the Velvet Underground is that one band that I cannot live without. If I do not have thier CD in my possesion, then I will probebly go out and do heroin so that I could feel the same greatness and thier music.