Cher’s scathing review of The Velvet Underground
There are few names in music more revered than Lou Reed, few albums more iconic than The Velvet Underground & Nico, and few bands more influential than The Velvet Underground. Almost six decades on from the project’s first inception, the avant-garde rockers remain a reference point for budding guitar bands across the globe. Even outside of the alternative sphere, their influence can still be found.
It wasn’t always this way, though. In fact, The Velvet Underground struggled to find critical or commercial success during their initial run as a band. “I was talking to Lou Reed the other day and he said that the first Velvet Underground record sold 30,000 copies in the first five years,” Brian Eno recalled in an interview with Musician magazine in 1982.
Ahead of their time and refusing to shy away from more taboo topics in their lyrics, the band were doomed to fail in the present, penning sleeper hits for the next generations. Meanwhile, the future Goddess of Pop, Cher, spent the 1960s making her breakthrough. With hits like ‘I Got You Babe’ and ‘Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)’, the singer and actor achieved commercial success that The Velvet Underground would never find.
Expectedly, the pop legend was less than impressed with The Velvet Underground’s music. While she helmed catchy, radio-friendly hits, Reed’s lyrics were dominated by themes of drugs, sexual revolution and nihilism. Still, somehow, Cher found herself at the band’s first-ever live show on the West Coast, where they played at The Trip in Los Angeles in 1966.
Accompanied by her husband and sonic collaborator Sonny and amidst a star-studded audience that also included The Byrds and Ryan O’Neal, Cher could hardly stand to listen to the twangs and drawls of The Velvet Underground. The singer reportedly left early, stating, “The Velvet Underground won’t replace anything… except maybe suicide.”
The comments may seem harsh, but Cher wasn’t alone in her dislike for the band. They continued to fail to find the right crowd, born in the wrong generation. Nonetheless, history has been far kinder to the New Yorkers than the Goddess of Pop was, as critics and audiences alike have come to revere their sonic experimentation.
Those commercial failures and poor reviews no longer reflect the legacy of The Velvet Underground. Their impact also went far beyond numbers and sales – as Eno stated regarding their debut, “I think everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band!”
To this day, The Velvet Underground live on in the sound of almost every experimental guitar band.
