My rating:

add to my books

The Velvet Underground & Nico (33⅓ #11)

by Joe Harvard

3.50 · rating details · 158 ratings · 27 reviews

The Velvet Underground and Nico has influenced the sound of more bands than any other album. And remarkably, it still sounds as fresh and challenging today as it did upon its release in 1967. In this book, Joe Harvard covers everything from Lou Reed's lyrical genius to John Cale's groundbreaking instrumentation, and from the creative input of Andy Warhol to the fine detail...more

Paperback, 152 pages

Published June 3rd 2004 by Continuum

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

There is a good chance some of your friends read this book. Sign in to see!

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Kim Cooper

33⅓

9th out of 94 books — 16 voters

Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung by Lester Bangs

Three Chords, A Black Leather Jacket, and a Pawn Shop Guitar - Your Punk Rock Identikit

38th out of 115 books — 16 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 295)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Aug 22, 2010

Paul rated it

Shelves: awopbopaloobopalopbamboom

Joe Harvard:

The miniscule tattoo I got in 1979 caused a family furor, with dark rumblings about bikers and convicts; when my niece recently acquired skin art that would impress most Yakuza and bring a smile to the lips of a Maori headhunter, nary a peep was uttered. American culture moves so fast it's more a verb than a noun.

Well, that's good stuff and this cute li'l book makes a pretty good job of accounting for one of the great albums of our time, released in the year o...more

like 8 likes

· see review

Mar 25, 2008

Tosh rated it

A so-so book on one of the great albums. I am proud to say that I discovered this particular album not by myself or via a friend at school or even through the rock media of the time. It was through my Dad who had a copy of the album in his collection. In fact it took me awhile to get to even listen to this album. Maybe a year??? Nevertheless it is one of those great recordings where sounds equals great songwriting equals great performance. It's magic. It really is. This book on the other ...more

like 1 like

· see review

Sep 28, 2011

Patrick McCoy rated it

Shelves: music

The Velvet Underground and Nico edition of Continuum’s 33 1/3 series of books on record albums by Joe Harvard has some good information about the album, it seems pieced together from several other sources and doesn’t have the authority of some of the other selections I have read. It has been suggested that booklet that came with the Peel Slowly 5 disc VU Box set has as much information and while that is not true, it is not as comprehensive as Frank Bruno’s impressive book on Elvis Costello’s Arm...more

· see review

May 08, 2010

Jon rated it

Shelves: criticism, music-stuff, 2010-summer-reads

I do like The Velvet Underground. But this is the first book I've read about them and I thought it a nice place to start. I'm fairly familiar with the band's history and thought this book did a good job talking about the historical context of the album and all those popular stories surrounding the band and this album, while also giving some good thoughts, insights, and analysis that made the band and the album seem that much more interesting.

This was an easy, quick read that I breeze...more

like 1 like

· see review

Feb 05, 2012

Kerri rated it

This is an adequate look at the creation of a great album, and I applaud the author for his meticulous citing of sources and avoidance of rumor and innuendo. However, it suffered from too much unnecessary information, particularly Jonathan Richman anecdotes. I realize that Jonathan Richman loves the Velvet Underground and apparently had a connection to John Cale at some point. I’m also guessing that the author knows Jonathan Richman, and seems quite proud of that fact, but really, who cares? Yes...more

· see review

Nov 22, 2010

Dimitri rated it

Morrison said: "It [Loaded] showed that we could have, all along, made truly commercial sounding records. We usually opted not to, because our material was incompatible with standard pop-music treatment. But people would wounder, 'Could they do it if they had to?' The answer was, 'Yes, we could.' And we did." But if what you're concerned with is whether or not a band was capable of making a truly great record, one that would remain vital and powerful, beautiful yet awe-inspiring long b...more

like 1 like

· see review

May 24, 2008

Andrew rated it

So hey, this book was really good. It has thus far been my opinion that the books in this series that stay away from straightforward writing about the album they're dealing with are more memorable and enjoyable, but this book turns that opinion on its head. And by the way, that's not to say that I haven't enjoyed the more straightforward installments that I've read--in fact, I thought Andrew Hultkrans's take on Love's "Forever Changes" was damned good. But Harvard's "Velvet Underg...moreSo hey, this book was really good. It has thus far been my opinion that the books in this series that stay away from straightforward writing about the album they're dealing with are more memorable and enjoyable, but this book turns that opinion on its head. And by the way, that's not to say that I haven't enjoyed the more straightforward installments that I've read--in fact, I thought Andrew Hultkrans's take on Love's "Forever Changes" was damned good. But Harvard's "Velvet Underground And Nico" is the first time I've read one of these books and felt like I've really learned something. Maybe it's because a lot of the writing about The Velvet Underground is more focused on mythology than actual history, or maybe it's because Joe Harvard focused on Lou Reed's literary influences (Raymond Chandler! Hubert Selby Jr!), which no other Velvet Underground-focused account that I've read ever has, but I felt like there was a lot of new information here. It really enriched my enjoyment of this album, and it probably helps that I agree with Mr. Harvard that this is the VU's true masterpiece and the only place where they fully got it right. I have friends who feel like Nico drags the whole thing down, and other friends who don't get the drone-noise chaos of "European Son" or "Black Angel's Death Song", and I don't know if said friends would turn up their nose at this book, since it doesn't fit with their own analysis of this album. But since it fits with mine, I didn't have any trouble with that part of the book. And since Harvard did a great job of collecting a lot of stray bits of information from dozens of accounts and personally conducted interviews into an account that probably contained a good bit more factual information than has been present in any previous Velvet Underground discussion, I feel that his book is an important addition to the canon of VU-centric discussion, regardless of whether you're someone who agrees with the author and myself that "Velvet Underground and Nico" is their best album.

And by the way, if you don't, you need to listen to it again. And again and again and again. Maybe you should do that anyway--you know, just in case.(less)

like 2 likes

· see review

Apr 07, 2008

Paul Austin rated it

Author Joe Harvard is a musician himself; he’s also perfected his studio tan by spending the better part of three decades producing and engineering at various recording studios, including Boston’s storied Fort Apache, which he founded. Prominent on Harvard’s website is a photo of him at some bar gig or other, buck naked except for a Flying V guitar. Is this really the kind of person you want penning a Velvet Underground book, given the Velvets erudition — a band influenced more by John Cage and ...moreAuthor Joe Harvard is a musician himself; he’s also perfected his studio tan by spending the better part of three decades producing and engineering at various recording studios, including Boston’s storied Fort Apache, which he founded. Prominent on Harvard’s website is a photo of him at some bar gig or other, buck naked except for a Flying V guitar. Is this really the kind of person you want penning a Velvet Underground book, given the Velvets erudition — a band influenced more by John Cage and the Fluxus gang, and poets such as Lou Reed’s own mentor Delmore Schwartz, than the rock music of their day?

Well… yeah. It’s exactly who you want writing it. The band has been chronicled endlessly, and if there’s going to be yet another VU book — in this case, on their first album specifically — I’d rather read a take on it by a rock and roller who had his musical boundaries shaken up by hearing this album than a take by some scholar who finds the Velvets intriguing despite being a rock band. Harvard talks about how his own band began playing Velvet Underground covers and soon realized how uncomfortably they sat with the Who and Stones jams filling out the remainder of the setlist.

The Velvet Underground is a band that’s constantly in the “influenced by” list when bands describe themselves, and this first album — the only one featuring the original Reed, Cale, Morrison, Tucker and Nico lineup — is usually the sound those bands are referring to. It was the Velvets before they started reading their own press, and duly ramped up the dark underbelly quotient to theatrical excess, ensuring they’d continued to “shock.” It was also the album that included not only sinister drones and scrapes (”The Black Angel’s Death Song,” “Venus In Furs”) but also some startlingly fragile quiet songs (”I’ll Be Your Mirror,” “Sunday Morning” — although the latter was recorded only when the label sent the band back to the studio to record a song they felt could be a single.)

As an album, The Velvet Underground and Nico is chemistry personified. Recorded in four days, one day, or twelve hours, depending on who’s account you’re reading, it was Lou Reed’s vision of taking the literary sensibilities of Hubert Selby and Delmore Schwartz and nailing them to a rock beat. But it’s hard to imagine the end result would be anywhere near as sonically compelling without the classically trained (but “rules”-averse) John Cale aboard with his viola and arrangement ideas. The same could be said of Moe Tucker, who played a bass drum on its side with mallets so simply it became a hypnotic pulse the others could wrap themselves around. And the icy Nico — I’ve heard lots of folks do a comic impression of her singing “Femme Fatale,” but regardless of how you hear it, it’s something you don’t forget. And we’re not even getting into the influence of album “producer” Andy Warhol, who urged the group not to sacrifice the rawness and squall of their live shows in favor of cleaning it up for the studio. (His famous quote of the time, so very Warhol: “Don’t take the dirty words out!”)

For the “I was there” content, Harvard leans on the recollections of two folks in particular: album engineer Norman Dolph and Harvard’s longtime friend Jonathan Richman (who’s own Modern Lovers album would make a great 33 1/3 book as well, by the way). By the time the album became as celebrated and influential as it is, the VU members all carried pretty significant baggage as to where credit was due, resulting in some obvious agendas; this makes it all the more terrific that Harvard located Dolph. Norman Dolph doesn’t have any axes to grind, deflects credit to others at every turn, and basically provides recollection as to what the actual process was. It’s a fascinating read; the album is so much a part of lore now that when a fan at a record fair recently stumbled upon one of Dolph’s first acetates, it made news that the original leadoff track was meant to be the eight minute grinder “European Son” rather than a more listener friendly track. It also made news that this acetate — bought for 75 cents — sold on eBay for twenty five grand.

It’s a fair bet to say many of today’s bands that claim to be influenced by the Velvets don’t really listen to the Velvets; they listen to other contemporary bands who do. I’ve run across one band who say their sound is “Velvets-inspired”, but when asked, the CD they actually talk about is by The Black Angels. Hey, fair enough — it only goes to show how powerful the legacy of the VU is, and how saying “Velvets-like” has become a part of our pop-culture vocabulary. When you invoke the Velvets, people know exactly what vibe you’re trying to conjure up: the darkness, the drones and the danger, the minimalist psychedelia.

Joe Harvard writes as a fan and doesn’t claim to be an expert. Freed from having to critically redefine the album (it’s been done ad nauseam), he can write with unbridled enthusiasm, pose a few theories, and generally enjoy himself as he digs into the past and present of The Velvet Underground and Nico. His enthusiasm is contagious.(less)

like 2 likes

· see review

Jun 05, 2011

Andrew Kubasek rated it

Shelves: completed

A really fun book! Granted, it contains a lot of references to demos and alternate takes that, without access to them, make it hard to fully comprehend. But the background material - especially regarding Andy Warhol's relationship to the band as "producer" and how Nico came to join the group - is especially engrossing. I also liked the mini-essays about each song from the final cut of the record.

I highly recommend that anyone reading this book be very familiar with the a...more

like 1 like

· see review

Jan 08, 2009

Chris rated it

My first 33 1/3. It was good and had a lot of stuff I didn't know, which is always great. It also had (I thought) a pretty good approach to the often dodgy rock non-fiction genre. Making sense of (often verbal) legends and rumors isn't easy and Joe Harvard did a good job of putting things in perspective.

like 1 like

· see review

Sep 15, 2011

Patrick Fisackerly rated it

A really interesting little book that tells you pretty much everything you'd want to know about THE VELVET UNDERGROUND & NICO, one of the greatest rock albums ever made. It's as much about Lou Reed as it is about Andy Warhol and the whole Factory subculture of the '60s, and that's fine with me. A good read.

· see review

Aug 09, 2009

Jason Mierek rated it

Shelves: music, psychedelic

I most appreciated two things about this book. One was that it got me to listen to this again (repeatedly) and confirm that it is indeed one of my favorite albums of all time. The other is that Joe Harvard explained the role of album producers in some detail, and in so doing made a convincing case that Andy Warhol, by virtue of his being hands-off and basically a shield against challenges to UV's artistic vision, was quite successful. Before reading this I'd just seen him as producer qua "t...more

· see review

Jun 12, 2008

Richard added it

This could have been better, but it was still interesting. i feel I could have written a more nuanced analysis of the album than this dude did, but there were a lot of little factoids that I'm glad to know. Like you know in "Femme Fatale" when the guys sing "She's a femme fataaaale" and they pronounce the "a" really flat and nasally? Apparently that infuriated Nico, and she wanted them to pronounce it in the correct French way, but Lou Reed insisted that they pro...more

· see review

Nov 07, 2009

John rated it

Velvet Underground's The Velvet Underground and Nico Review on Wordriot.org

· see review

Oct 09, 2007

Will Lynch rated it

Joe Harvard completely gives in to the kind of senseless band-worship that often turns me of to rock journalism. He also assumes the reader already knows all the infamous rumors and legends about the Velvets, to which he makes ambiguous reference but does not retell (fairly presumptuous, considering the reader has chosen to buy a book about the Velvet Underground... do that many people really read multiple volumes on the band?) More than anything else, this just made me want to read "Please...more

· see review

Nov 05, 2011

4ZZZ rated it

Shelves: music

I thoroughly enjoyed this bio of the great album. Short sharp and to the point.

· see review

Jan 04, 2012

Erin Tuzuner rated it

Shelves: 2012, music

Detracts, more than enhances, the mythology of this seminal record.

· see review

Sep 27, 2009

Lydia Gurevich rated it

Shelves: favorite

Amazing, informative book about the greatest band of all time.

like 1 like

· see review

Aug 23, 2011

Jon-Christ Yates rated it

· see review

Oct 18, 2007

Don rated it

Just discovered the "33 1/3" series of books, where each volume takes one noteworthy & influential album and delves into it in excruciating detail - the band members, their history, the making of the album, thoughts & explanations on all of the songs, etc. It's not perfect - at times, the author's prose gets a little too full of its own cleverness - but for music geeks like myself, this is a fantastic discovery. (And I can't help but note they have a volume on Aqualung...!)

like 1 like

· see review

Aug 08, 2008

Nathan rated it

Recommends it for: Lou Reed

Shelves: 33-1-3-series

I really enjoyed this read. It got away from the typical Andy Warhol shtick that you get when you read about the band. This one actually could have gone a bit farther than it did, but I like me some Joe Harvard.

like 1 like

· see review

Jul 02, 2008

Alex rated it

Recommends it for: Velvet Underground fans

Genius. I love the 33&1/3 series, but this one is probably my favorite, mainly because it documents the genesis of an album so dear to me. A must for any Velvet Underground fan.

like 1 like

· see review

Mar 01, 2009

David rated it

"If I hadn't heard rock 'n' roll on the radio, I would have had no idea there was life on this planet."

"All great art looks like it was made this morning." - Norman Dolph

like 1 like

· see review

Sep 17, 2007

miguel rated it

When one finds difficulty finishing a small 150ish page book on one of your favorite albums, it's time to just put it down and move on.

· see review

Jul 31, 2008

Rob rated it

So far--I'm not super impressed by this edition...but I'll weigh in more fully once it's done

· see review

Aug 26, 2008

Craig rated it

A scam. You can get this stuff and much more from a million other sources.

· see review

Apr 23, 2007

Stephen marked it as to-read

On my list.

· see review

Feb 08, 2012

Bobby Caputo marked it as to-read

Shelves: amazon-wishlist

Feb 02, 2012

Jude added it

Shelves: punk-rock

Feb 01, 2012

Brent rated it

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend it | Stats | Recent status updates

Genres

Music

26 users

Non Fiction

5 users

See top shelves...

Readers Also Enjoyed

Books by Joe Harvard

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Pin It

Trivia About The Velvet Underg...

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

Groups That Shelved The Velvet Underg...

The Rory Gilmore Book Club

3901 members

last activity 6 hours, 35 min ago

shelf: to-read

title link	preview: The Velvet Underground & Nico
avg rating	preview: The Velvet Underground & Nico Goodreads rating: 3.50 (158 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/159226.The_Velvet_Underground_Nico?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1298455126m/159226.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/159226.The_Velvet_Underground_Nico?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]The Velvet Underground & Nico by Joe Harvard[/url]

The Velvet Underground & Nico (33⅓ #11)

Friend Reviews

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topicDiscuss This Book

Genres

Readers Also Enjoyed

Books by Joe Harvard

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website

Trivia About The Velvet Underg...

Groups That Shelved The Velvet Underg...

new topic
Discuss This Book