Femme Fatale: The underrated impact of Nico on The Velvet Underground
No other band has had quite the same impact on the face of rock and roll or alternative music as The Velvet Underground. Their stunning debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico, is rightly hailed among the greatest records of all time, and it is difficult to disagree with that fact. The album had a colossal impact on virtually everybody who has ever heard it, inspiring countless future artists including the likes of David Bowie, The Clash and Arctic Monkeys. While the driving force of the group is often attributed to the songwriting of Lou Reed, the contributions of Nico to that first album should certainly not be overlooked.
Nico’s involvement in The Velvet Underground was never a particularly harmonious affair. In fact, the German singer was only drafted in as a result of Andy Wahrol’s insistence. Openly, Lou Reed was resentful of her inclusion in the group from the very start. Unsurprisingly, then, her tenure with the New York outfit was distressingly short, barely lasting long enough to get her ethereal vocals onto tape before she was ousted from the group. Nonetheless, it was largely her influence which imbued the band’s debut with such timeless brilliance.
The singer is a criminally underrated aspect of The Velvet Underground’s success, owing largely to the frustrations that she caused Reed and Cale. In something of a paradox, these frustrations would often work to make the music more appealing. Reportedly, the band were less than kind to the singer, forcing her to sing into a cassette player onstage, leading Warhol to recall, “The tears would roll down her face because she just couldn’t remember how the buttons worked.”
Even the eternally-disgruntled Lou Reed, cannot deny the impact that Nico had on the band. According to the songwriter, he wrote the classic track ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’ to “to make her feel better about herself,” though the sweetness of that idea is somewhat betrayed by the fact that Reed forced Nico to do countless studio takes of the song, to the point that she broke down in tears.
Granted, Nico is not the most technically proficient vocalist, but then that’s why she suited The Velvet Underground so well. None of the band were gifted musicians in a technical sense – with the exception of John Cale – it was their DIY ethos and pioneering spirit which made them so influential on the development of punk and alternative music. Nico’s vocals added some sense of legitimacy to proceedings though, providing an alternative to the disinterested, sneering vocals of Lou Reed.
Regardless of Reed’s resentment of Nico, tracks like ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’ and, of course, ‘Femme Fatale’, could only have been performed by Nico. While Reed’s singing has its own unique appeal, it cannot match the performance of Nico in terms of emotional impact. The very fact that, as a result of being partially deaf, her voice would often drift in and out of tune added to this proto-gothic quality that she gave the album.
If you look at the Velvet Underground records which followed the debut, after Nico had gone on to focus on her celebrated solo work, you often get the feeling that something is missing. Far from being just a vocalist, Nico encouraged the band into a sound that was much more avant-garde and much darker. Her presence also inspired a lot of emotional songwriting, particularly from Reed. Their diversity in sound and songwriting is often held up as a prime example of why The Velvet Underground were so groundbreaking, but a lot of that is indebted to the forgotten influence of Nico.
