The Velvet Underground
What Goes On
David Pattie editor Sean Albiez editor
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Published:18th Apr '24
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
An academic collection that explores and examines The Velvet Underground in the 1960s and the solo activities of band members up to the present.
Though The Velvet Underground were critically and commercially unsuccessful in their time, in ensuing decades they have become a constant touchstone in art rock, punk, post-punk, indie, avant pop and alternative rock. In the 1970s and 80s Lou Reed, John Cale and Nico produced a number of works that traveled a path between art and pop. In 1993 the original band members of Reed, Cale, Morrison and Tucker briefly reunited for live appearances, and afterwards Reed, Cale and briefly Tucker, continued to produce music that travelled the idiosyncratic path begun in New York in the mid-1960s. The influence of the band and band members, mediated and promoted through famous fans such as David Bowie and Brian Eno, seems only to have expanded since the late 1960s. In 1996 the Velvet Underground were in inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, demonstrating how far the band had traveled in 30 years from an avant-garde cult to the mainstream recognition of their key contributions to popular music. In these collected essays, Pattie and Albiez present the first academic book-length collection on The Velvet Underground. The book covers a range of topics including the band’s relationship to US literature, to youth and cultural movements of the 1960s and beyond and to European culture - and examines these contexts from the 1960s through to the present day.
This volume marks itself as essential for even the most jaded VU head. ... Collectively these 12 chapters make for a lively, insightful, critical account of post-Velvet Underground activities. * www.peterstanfield.com *
These essays place the Velvet Underground in the context of the downtown New York music, artistic and literary scene of the 1960s and examine its extended legacy in the later work of former group members and figures such as David Bowie and Jonathan Richman. The multiple perspectives they provide gave me new ways to grasp the legend that is the Velvet Underground. * Philip Auslander, Professor of Performance Studies and Popular Musicology, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA *
The book offers a fresh approach to looking at The Velvet Underground, one of the most influential bands of the 20th century. Written from musicological, film studies, cultural studies, literary, and historical perspectives, the collection offers a vibrant and multidisciplinary take on the band and its larger 'world'. Chapters about an album, a controversial performance, a relationship, a film, and a fan, provide an eclectic and fresh view of the band, its members, and the broader cultural context within which it existed. * Abigail Gardner, Professor of Cultural Studies, University of Gloucestershire, UK, and Associate Editor, Journal of The International Association of the Study of Popular Music *
The Velvet Underground was a stroppy, defiant and difficult band. The academic research into the Velvets rarely captured the rage, the humour, the confusion, the ambivalence and the raw power. The Velvet Underground is a magisterial book that “gets” the Velvets. There is a commitment to arch beyond easy commentary about Reed or Warhol or Tucker. This book revels in un/popular music that lashes into our populist times. * Tara Brabazon, Dean of Graduate Research and Professor of Cultural Studies, The Flinders University, Australia *
ISBN: 9781501393907
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
310 pages