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Andy Warhol and The Velvet Under-
ground first met in 1965 at Café Bizarre in
Greenwich Village, New York. That evening,
the rock band with a dark soul, which sang
about the discomfort of abuse and excess,
was abruptly fired for a performance that
was too raw, scandalous, and vulgar. Not
bad. Andy Warhol was so deeply impressed
by that performance that he decided to book
a rehearsal room in the Factory for the group On the right, Singer-songwriter Lou Reed, formerly of cult ground-breaking rock 'n' roll noise group The Velvet Underground. ©Keystone/Getty Images
and produce their first album.
The group, active from 1964 to 1973,
consisted of Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling
Morrison and Maureen Tucker. Warhol saw
something very similar to his art in their mu-
sic, the same existential bitterness that he
could recognize behind the glamour and
success.
The album The Velvet Underground &
Nico, released in 1967 by Verve Records, fea-
tures Warhol in the dual role of producer and
cover illustrator. As a producer, his influence
on the album was minimal – his main contri-
bution was hiring the German singer Nico –
but he had complete creative freedom when
it came to designing the cover. The result is
one of the most iconic covers in music his-
tory, so much so that the record was dubbed
the ‘Banana album’.
The background is white, like that of a
canvas; above, only Andy Warhol’s name
and a large yellow banana (and in some cop-
ies his signature). Next to the stem, the in-
scription “Peel slowly and see”. The yellow
banana could be peeled off, it was a sticker,
and underneath it was a pink banana, a clear
symbol of male genitalia. The idea was so
popular that Verve Records secured a very
expensive, purpose-built machine to pro-
duce it, but the sexual double entendre and
high production costs created various distri-
bution problems, so over time only the yellow
banana was made.
The reverse side also had its problems,
in particular the image of Eric Emerson,
taken from a Warhol film and for which the
rights had not been paid. The image was
blacked out. The album was withdrawn and
re-released several times and despite selling
only 30,000 copies in its first five years, it is
unanimously considered by critics to be one
of the most influential albums of all time, a
forerunner of punk, new wave and post-rock.
Rare are the original sticker covers.

106 Music Protagonist