Sleaze, needles, leather and neon – these are a few of Lou Reed’s favourite things. This album foreshadowed Scorsese’s Taxi Driver by a decade – Reid wanders the squalid lane-ways of the Bowery, chronicling the filth, the debauchery, the sense of freedom and possibility.
Musically, The Velvet Underground… matches his vision, with its squall of police-siren licks and funereal bass riffs. And in co-vocalist Nico, a soul already nearly lost, Reed found his perfect foil. Like Reed, Nico had long danced a dangerous tango with heroin. Unlike him, she would descend into tragic junkiedom. You can hear echoes of what she will become on this LP. It is a slow-burn suicide note from someone who does not yet realise they wish to destroy themselves.