IMDb RATING
7.3/10
5.6K
YOUR RATING
The Velvet Underground explores the multiple threads that converged to bring together one of the most influential bands in rock and roll.The Velvet Underground explores the multiple threads that converged to bring together one of the most influential bands in rock and roll.The Velvet Underground explores the multiple threads that converged to bring together one of the most influential bands in rock and roll.
- Awards
- 3 wins & 36 nominations
The Velvet Underground
- Themselves
- (archive footage)
Lou Reed
- Self - Songwriter, Musician & Author
- (archive footage)
Sterling Morrison
- Self - Musician
- (archive footage)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaAfter Lou Reed and Sterling Morrison quit the band, it carried on for a time with Doug Yule becoming the frontman on vocals and guitar. Moe Tucker also stayed with the band after her return from parental leave and they were joined by a new bassist and keyboardist. This lineup toured the Loaded album around parts of North America and Europe in 1971. A fifth studio album was released for a UK record label under the Velvet Underground name: 1973's Squeeze. All members bar Doug Yule were sent back to the United States in 1972 and Yule recorded all parts except the drums by Deep Purple's Ian Paice, saxophone by someone called Malcolm and some unidentified female backing vocals. Recording the album as essentially a Doug Yule solo effort was at the instruction of manager Steve Seswick, who had earlier brought Yule to the band and had long pushed for the Velvets to adopt a more commercial style with Yule at its centre. Yule himself was displeased at Seswick's control of the process. While Yule had been a significant creative force, albeit secondary to Lou Reed, on the celebrated Loaded album, Squeeze is much-maligned. It received terrible reviews, though it has gained some appreciators over the years. It is typically considered a Velvets record in name only. At around the same time as the official Velvet Underground were being reduced to Seswick's Doug Yule project, Lou Reed, John Cale and Nico had also been in Europe for a reunion performance in Paris in 1972, which was bootlegged and eventually released under the name Le Bataclan '72. Footage from this reunion performance is included in this film.
- Quotes
Self - Songwriter, Musician & Producer: We tuned to the sixty-cycle hum of the refrigerator. The sixty-cycle hum of the refrigerator was to us the drone of Western civilization.
- ConnectionsFeatures Pierrette I (1924)
Featured review
One of the notable and important documentaries of recent times "The Velvet Underground" is a long overdue tribute to the great band and its incalculable influence on popular culture and artistic history. Utilizing a somewhat experimental slant in relating the group's fabled history this somewhat sedate and sombre academic take begins with the band members' origins and their path to legend. Chronicling their start from a garage band to the innovatory course they took that set them brilliantly apart from the rest and their fateful meeting with Andy Warhol onto the end of their career the film is a pretty compelling feast of art and music. Priceless footage of the band and interviews with people who played a part in the band's legend provide the information on what made the band tick. Considering The Velvets influence and importance it's a sorely lacking flaw that so many artists were not featured and interviewed in this doc. Having Jonathan Richman and a voice interview of a long dead David Bowie as the few luminaries featured is pitiful to say the least and diminishes/minimalizes on why the band is so important and why they will always matter. The lack of liveliness and a sense of fun and verve kill the sense of Rock n' Roll which is what this film is and should really be about. While the definitive Rockumentary on the mythical band has yet to be done this should be a good treat that'll have fans satisfied. A memorial to a time, a city and artists this is an aesthetic paean to perhaps the greatest and most influential Rock band in history.
- Screen_O_Genic
- Oct 17, 2021
- Permalink
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Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Ban nhạc the Velvet Underground
- Filming locations
- New York City, New York, USA(main location)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime2 hours 1 minute
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.78 : 1
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By what name was The Velvet Underground (2021) officially released in Japan in Japanese?
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