What made them so genius music-wise?

what made them so genius music-wise?

heroin and lou's homo tendencies

so their acclaim isnt based on the music at all?

From what I've gathered, not a lot of the musical ideas, like the droning violins in Venus, or the freak out in some of the songs in the second half, had been expressed in western rock at the moment. On top of the experimentation, the songs also had a keen linear quality to them also.

Lou had style as a singer, and I believe the musicianship and the band's chemistry, very organic for 1967, are behemoths to be compared to for among the rock music at the time, and really, up to today.

>also warhol

>and I believe the musicianship
Cale had the true talent though Lou was still essential to the VU

imagine the kraut movement without vu, imagine post punk without kraut, imagine indie rock (and it's undergenres) without post punk we ain't getting none of the good shit w/o vu

the stooges would have just picked up the slack

stooges influence is certainly there in the punk movement but they don't really have much to do with either kraut or post-punk. arguably the first krautrock record of all time (monster movie) steals super heavily from tvu - the tribal tucker drums, cales droning violin, lous sloppy guitars and his sloppy new york vocals. also their (proto-)punk attitude combined with actual understanding of art come to define the intellectualization of punk 10 years after their end. while other bands had parts of these things down, none combined them in the way tvu did, and I can't imagine he krautrock bands would've been able to create their sound without tvu being there as the fully formed package they were.

you have a point with krautrock and post-punk. their (or should i say john cale's) attitude towards incorporating experimental ideas into rock music is certainly in line with the themes of the post-punk movement. however i think we all need to stop exaggerating their influence on punk rock. its very very overstated. the genre would have gone on fine without TVU. punk rock is mostly based on the stooges and the new york dolls sonically. though i do think lou reed's attitude was somewhat in line with the proto-punks, the band's music sounds nothing like punk rock as we know it.

Don't forget MC5 as well. They were active at the same time as the Stooges and led the proto punk movement.

Yeah it was more an influence on 80's indierock which went hand in hand with Punk.

John Cale's art music background combined with Lou Reed's hipster couldn't-give-a-fuck attitude and Warhol's glamorous influence

People associate it with punk because they were such a huge influence on post-punk, but it doesn't really make sense to credit VU with punk because really what they did was influence the punks who didn't make punk so they had to do with the movement but not the genre of punk rock itself

i think its important to make that distinction between punk and post-punk, both genres stand for different ideas

I think they stand for the same thing but sound very different. I don't see a difference in attitude, just approach.

post-punk is still about negation but less about "destruction", pic related

great quote and answer, you done good boi

I'm not sure if "Genius" it the proper term to describe VU or their debut album, but it certainly influenced plenty of bands. (Good album too, but, with the exception of Squeeze, VU never put out a bad record IMHO)

The Squeeze meme needs to die, it's mediocre but at least it's not as bad as Loaded

Velvet undergrounds string of late 60s albums are, for punk and indie musics, analogous to what the beatles 3 pioneering psychedelic albums of 65 - 67 were for the explosion of rock music as artform in general. Many of who were inspired by VU would reject the perceived pretentions of sergeant pepper and instead spiral into a whirlpool of shoddy bin music in rejection of the rock establishment's mainstream.

Still, it wasn't solely vu that were responsible for krautrock.

You guys aso forget that even though they somewhat rejected them, the people that started punk essentially grew up listening to the rock establishment of the late 60s early 70s. Bands like the stones and especially glam rock and bowie would have still had a significant influence on punk even if bands like the new york dolls and ramones essentially tore it up.

Also important to note that many if not all post punk bands were originally punk.