Last Sunday marked the 22nd anniversary of the death of Andy Warhol, the iconic pop artist who, by bringing The Velvet Underground and Nico into his New York Factory scene, ensured you would never cry alone. The soundtrack to one thousand hearts splintering into ice, there are few bands who have directly influenced modern music as strongly, and some would say as surreptitiously, as The Velvet Underground and Nico.

In the spirit of the man who created a counterculture to the counterculture, inspired some of the most haunting, influential music of a generation, and guaranteed we would all spend at least one evening of our young lives stoned and staring at a picture of a giant banana with our own irrelevance sitting on our shoulder (but if feels so GOOD), a playlist tribute, starting with some wisdom from die-hard Velvet Underground enthusiast and all-around mad poetic genius Lester Bangs, who called Andy Warhol “the prophet of our doom”:”…the Velvet Underground were for me part of the beginning of a real revolution in the whole scheme between men and women, men and men, women and women, humans and humans. And I don’t mean clones. I mean a diversity that extends to the stars.”
-From Untitled Notes on Lou Reed, 1980 (Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung)

Calexico w/ Iron and Wine-All Tomorrow’s Parties (Velvet Underground Cover)

Belle and Sebastian-I’m Waiting For The Man (Velvet Underground Cover)

Cat Power-I Found A Reason (Velvet Underground Cover)

The Velvet Underground-Heroin

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