When Brian Eno proclaimed, “I think everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies [of The Velvet Underground & Nico] started a band. So I console myself thinking that some things generate their rewards in a second-hand way,‰” it would become one of the most repeated quotes about The Velvet Underground’s 1967 debut album.

The Velvet Underground & Nico was maybe the last rock record that was undeniably ahead of its time, often considered a foundation of genres that wouldn‰’t truly find its stride until decades later like psychedelic, noise and indie rock. The album is often closely associated with Andy Warhol. The most immediate connection is the autographed album art of the pop-art banana, but what Warhol was really able to do for the band was free them from any pressures of economic success. By financing the group and making them a part of his Exploding Plastic Inevitable live art show, Warhol took a band from the grimy underworld of New York City and thrust them into the world of art, while simultaneously enabling the band to express themselves however they felt necessary. The result was something beyond detached from the musical realm of 1967.

It‰’s nearly impossible to imagine a song like “European Son‰” or even “Run Run Run‰” being produced as any attempt to make a profit. While the nation was just recovering from the shock of watching Elvis shake his hips, The Velvet Underground were writing noisy, abrasive songs about prostitution, sado-masochism and hard drug use. The album begins innocently enough with “Sunday Morning,‰” a platform that countless indie pop bands would later try and miserably fail to reach. “I‰’m Waiting For The Man‰” is a bit more gritty, but by no means offensively so, until you realize that Lou Reed is singing a song about buying drugs. We get a taste of Nico‰’s contribution to the album in “Femme Fatale,‰” but it‰’s generally by “Venus in Furs‰” that the listener realizes that they‰’re listening to something new. John Cale‰’s Hitchcockian viola screeches meet Reed‰’s acid-soaked guitar to form the backing to lyrics about sado-masochism as a means of escapism. “European Son‰” still has the power to make new listeners off-put by its screeching feedback, a feat that a very, very select number of songs hold, let alone to hold that power over the course of half a century.

The Velvet Underground & Nico is a record today that is held in near unanimous regard as one of the most important rock albums of all time. It took risks that were unheard of at the time, and were so far ahead of their time that it would take years for the public to realize what was under their noses.