[13] The Velvet Underground by Michael Leigh was a contemporary mass market paperback about the secret sexual subculture of the early 1960s; Cale's friend and Dream Syndicate associate Tony Conrad showed it to the group, and MacLise made a suggestion to adopt the title as the band's name.

Their music was generally much more relaxed than it would later become: Cale described this era as reminiscent of beat poetry, with MacLise playing gentle "pitter and patter rhythms behind the drone".

[15] In July 1965, Reed, Cale and Morrison recorded a demo tape at their Ludlow Street loft without MacLise, because he refused to be tied down to a schedule and would turn up to band practice sessions only when he wanted.

[16][17] When he briefly returned to Britain, Cale attempted to give a copy of the tape to Marianne Faithfull,[18] hoping she would pass it on to Mick Jagger, lead singer of the Rolling Stones.

Her rhythms, at once simple and exotic (influenced by the likes of Babatunde Olatunji and Bo Diddley as well as Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones), became a vital part of the group's music, despite Cale's initial objections to the presence of a female drummer.

In 1965, after being introduced to the Velvet Underground by filmmaker Barbara Rubin,[23] Andy Warhol became the band's manager and suggested they use the German-born singer Nico (born Christa Päffgen) on several songs.

[24][failed verification] During a short period in September 1966, when Cale was ill, the avant-garde musician Henry Flynt and Reed's friend Richard Mishkin[25] took turns to cover for him.

[28] Included in this issue of the "magazine", which retailed at $4 ($38 in 2023 dollars[19]) per copy and was packaged in a hinged box designed to look like Fab laundry detergent, were various leaflets and booklets, one of which was a commentary on rock and roll by Lou Reed, another an EPI promotional newspaper.

"Loop", a recording solely of pulsating audio feedback culminating in a locked groove, was "a precursor to [Reed's] Metal Machine Music", say Velvets archivists M.C.

[30] Closing out the album was the avant-garde "The Black Angel's Death Song", followed by the lengthy, feedback-laden "European Son", which Reed dedicated to his Syracuse professor Delmore Schwartz.

"[37] Filmmaker and music writer, Grant McPhee conducted a 2021 investigation into Eno's famous claim into the popularity of the band's first album and concluded that it may have sold as many as 200,000 copies by 1971 alone.

[45] The title track sets a harsh opening; bassist Cale overdubbing a piano that has been described as "a cross between Jerry Lee Lewis and Henry Cowell".

[46] Along with brash songs like "Sister Ray" and "I Heard Her Call My Name", there was the darkly comic "The Gift", a short story written by Reed and narrated by Cale in his deadpan Welsh accent.

Further, some songs the band had performed with Cale in concert, or that he had co-written, were not recorded until after he had left the group (such as "Walk It and Talk It", "Ride into the Sun", and "Countess from Hong Kong").

Another factor in the change of sound was the band's Vox amplifiers and assorted fuzzboxes were rumored to have been stolen from an airport while they were on tour and they obtained replacements by signing a new endorsement deal with Sunn.

[58] The album contains the experimental track "The Murder Mystery", which utilized all four band members (Reed, Yule, Tucker and Morrison) reading different lyrics, sometimes simultaneously, as well as the ballad "Pale Blue Eyes".

After Reed's departure, he later reworked a number of these songs for his solo records over the years: "Stephanie Says", "Ocean", "I Can't Stand It", "Lisa Says", and "Andy's Chest", as well as "She's My Best Friend", which had been originally sung by Doug Yule.

Though the record was not the smash hit the company had anticipated, it contains the most accessible pop-rock the Velvet Underground had performed, and two of Reed's best-known songs, "Sweet Jane" and "Rock and Roll".

[61][62] By the recording of Loaded, Doug Yule played a more prominent role in the band, and with Reed's encouragement, sang the lead vocal on four songs: "Who Loves the Sun", which opened the album, "New Age", "Lonesome Cowboy Bill" and the final track, "Oh!

Although he contributed guitar tracks to the album, he began to split his time between classes, the sessions and the gigs at Max's, thus leaving Reed and Yule to handle the bulk of the arrangements.

(For the 1995 box set Peel Slowly and See, the album was presented as Reed intended;[citation needed] the "Fully Loaded" two-disc edition includes the full versions of "Sweet Jane" and "New Age".)

[69] With manager Steve Sesnick looking to fill bookings (following the departure of Lou Reed), and with the pending release of Loaded in November 1970, the band, now with Sterling Morrison on guitar, Moe Tucker on drums, Walter Powers on bass, and Doug Yule taking over lead vocals and guitar, played periodic shows to promote the album from November 1970 to August 1971, playing shows around the U.S.[70] By this juncture, Sterling Morrison had received his degree from the City College of New York.

This brief lineup of the Velvet Underground consisted of Yule, guitarist Rob Norris (later of The Bongos), bassist George Kay (Krzyzewski), and drummer Mark Nauseef.

It was during this brief period in the UK that Yule recorded the Polydor album (ultimately titled Squeeze) under the Velvet Underground name virtually by himself, with only the assistance of Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice and a few other session musicians in an unspecified London studio.

While Yule intended to recruit Moe Tucker to play drums on Squeeze and the handful of promotional shows, Sesnick vetoed his decision and claimed she was "too expensive" to hire.

[72] In late May 1973, the band and the tour manager parted ways, thus bringing the Velvet Underground to an end until the classic line-up of Reed, Tucker, Morrison and Cale reunited in the 1990s.

The Reed–Cale–Morrison–Tucker lineup officially reunited without Yule (whose inclusion had been championed by Morrison) in 1992,[12] commencing activities with a European tour beginning in Edinburgh on June 1, 1993, and including a performance at Glastonbury which appeared on an NME front cover.

In December 2009, to commemorate the 45th anniversary of the band's formation, Reed, Tucker and Yule (with Cale not present) gave a rare interview at the New York Public Library.

In January 2012, the surviving members of the band initiated legal action against the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts over unauthorized use of the debut album's banana design.

[90] The music of the Velvet Underground has been described as "boldly uncompromising both sonically and lyrically", and has been delineated as a fusion of rock & roll, avant-garde, and the "poetic realism of post-beat literature".