As far as album covers are concerned, there's arguably none more iconic than The Velvet Underground's self-titled debut. With Andy Warhol as their manager, producer and album artist - the sleeve produced was bound to be something special. Early copies of the album invited the owner to "Peel slowly and see"; peeling back the banana skin revealed a flesh-colored one underneath. At the time of it's release, the conventions of society (particularly in New York) were being challenged more than ever - after dark, transexuals such as Candy Darling and Holly Woodlawn would gather round Central Park to discuss the struggles of living in a man's world, advertisements and mundane objects were being proposed as pieces of art and more importantly - in a world where idylic, uniformed bands such as Buddy Holly, The Beatles and The Beach Boys were singing about peace, love and happiness, one band in particular were emerging from the counterculture, rapidly gaining notoriety in the underground scene for its experimentalist performance sensibilities as well as their focus on controversial subject matters expressed in many of their songs including drug abuse, prostitution, sado-masochism and sexual deviancy. The Velvet's were a band whose ideals were solely based on deviating from the norm and speaking out for the outcasts of society, with that in mind, the fact that the album cover was created by radical pop-artist Andy Warhol seems particularly fitting. Warhol's actual participation in the album's production amounted to simply paying for the studio time - his fascination with human behaviour, simplicity and objects being stripped down to their most absolute form meant that the album was virtually made up of live recordings from the studio that day - warts and all. Because of his obsession with simplicity, a basic - and perhaps easily copied - print of a banana is an accurate virtual representation of The Velvet Underground - the house band for Warhol's factory. An often repeated statement in the music industry made about 'the banana album' - as it later became known - is that although a mere 30,000 copies of the album were sold at the time, every single person who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band - a legacy which was created not only by the songs and compilation of the album, but also by it's iconic sleeve.
Thursday, 26 September 2013
The Banana Album.
As far as album covers are concerned, there's arguably none more iconic than The Velvet Underground's self-titled debut. With Andy Warhol as their manager, producer and album artist - the sleeve produced was bound to be something special. Early copies of the album invited the owner to "Peel slowly and see"; peeling back the banana skin revealed a flesh-colored one underneath. At the time of it's release, the conventions of society (particularly in New York) were being challenged more than ever - after dark, transexuals such as Candy Darling and Holly Woodlawn would gather round Central Park to discuss the struggles of living in a man's world, advertisements and mundane objects were being proposed as pieces of art and more importantly - in a world where idylic, uniformed bands such as Buddy Holly, The Beatles and The Beach Boys were singing about peace, love and happiness, one band in particular were emerging from the counterculture, rapidly gaining notoriety in the underground scene for its experimentalist performance sensibilities as well as their focus on controversial subject matters expressed in many of their songs including drug abuse, prostitution, sado-masochism and sexual deviancy. The Velvet's were a band whose ideals were solely based on deviating from the norm and speaking out for the outcasts of society, with that in mind, the fact that the album cover was created by radical pop-artist Andy Warhol seems particularly fitting. Warhol's actual participation in the album's production amounted to simply paying for the studio time - his fascination with human behaviour, simplicity and objects being stripped down to their most absolute form meant that the album was virtually made up of live recordings from the studio that day - warts and all. Because of his obsession with simplicity, a basic - and perhaps easily copied - print of a banana is an accurate virtual representation of The Velvet Underground - the house band for Warhol's factory. An often repeated statement in the music industry made about 'the banana album' - as it later became known - is that although a mere 30,000 copies of the album were sold at the time, every single person who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band - a legacy which was created not only by the songs and compilation of the album, but also by it's iconic sleeve.
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