Editing New York City Music Scene (section)

===The Velvet Underground and the Downtown Avant-Garde (1965–1972)===

The '''Velvet Underground''' — comprising Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Maureen Tucker, with the visual artist Nico added for their debut record — emerged from the downtown Manhattan art world in the mid-1960s as one of the most radical and influential rock bands ever to exist. Associated with Andy Warhol's Factory and performing as part of his Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia happenings, the group made music of extraordinary darkness, dissonance, and lyrical frankness, addressing subjects — drug addiction, sexual transgression, street violence — that were entirely outside the bounds of mainstream pop.

Their four studio albums, released between 1967 and 1970, sold modestly on release but exerted an influence entirely disproportionate to their commercial performance. Brian Eno's oft-quoted observation — that everyone who bought the first Velvet Underground album went on to form a band — captures the depth of their impact on subsequent generations. The group are a direct progenitor of punk rock, post-punk, noise rock, and much of the experimental music that followed.