Book Synopsis 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 bands 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. Review Quotes 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 About the Author Sean Albiez is an Independent Scholar and musician. He has published on electronic music, music technology, punk and post-punk. He is currently researching topics in electronic music history and has thirty years experience lecturing in popular music at UK universities and colleges. He is co-editor of Kraftwerk: Music Non Stop (2011) and Brian Eno: Oblique Music (2016), and Contributing Editor (Music Technology) for the Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World . He produces electronic music as ghost elektron and - with Martin James - as Nostalgia Deathstar. David Pattie is Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre Arts at the University of Birmingham, UK. He researches and publishes in a number of areas; popular music performance and culture, contemporary British and Scottish theatre, and the work of Samuel Beckett. He is the author of Rock Music in Performance (2007), and the co-editor of the books Kraftwerk: Music Non Stop (2011) and Brian Eno: Oblique Music (2016).