The Velvet Underground is the third studio album by the American rock band the Velvet Underground. Released in March 1969 by MGM Records, it was their first record with multi-instrumentalist Doug Yule, who replaced previous member John Cale. Recorded in 1968 at TTG Studios in Los Angeles, California, the album's sound—consisting largely of ballads and straightforward rock songs—marked a notable shift in style from the band's previous recordings. Lead vocalist Lou Reed intentionally did this as a result of their abrasive previous studio album White Light/White Heat (1968).

"The Murder Mystery" includes all four members' voices. Yule states that the song was recorded in an MGM studio on Sixth Avenue in New York, though this contradicts the record's liner notes. The album's closing song, "After Hours", has a rare solo lead vocal by Tucker, requested by Reed as he felt the sweet, innocent quality of her voice fitted the song's mood better than his own. Tucker was nervous while recording the track, and after eight takes made everyone leave except herself, Reed, and the engineer. After she finished her take, she said that she wouldn't sing it live unless someone requested it. Reed recorded multiple guitar solos for "What Goes On"; when the engineer commented on how they were running out of track space, the band ultimately decided to keep all of them, as Reed could not decide which one sounded better. and Rolling Stone magazine's Troy Carpenter said that it focused on mellow, melodic rock. According to music journalist Steve Taylor, The Velvet Underground is a pop album because of its more accessible songs and "has been called Lou Reed with a backing band due to the emphasis placed on songs rather than experimental sound work." Biographer Richie Unterberger commented on its dramatic shift in sound: "Having made perhaps the loudest album of all time, it's almost as if they've now decided to make the world's quietest LP." Reed said that all of the songs on the album were in order and complement each other, elaborating in an interview with Howard Smith:<blockquote>

There were certain questions stated in the opening song... and then it was delineated, you know, through various phases.... it ended with 'Jesus,' saying now help me do this, man.... And then after you went through all... from here to here, which is like what an average person goes through, you're faced with like 'The Murder Mystery,' which is a total reversal of everything. Because you shouldn't be faced with that, but you were.

Just like on the other albums... people didn't catch [the track order]. And on this one, I felt it was obvious. But maybe it wasn't.... And finally he sums up, he says, 'That's the Story of My Life.' But then he was faced with something else, which is once you get past you, you got you solved, so that you don't exist... But what really is going on outside you is 'The Murder Mystery... then after that, it was just kind of, well, 'After Hours.' What could you say after 'The Murder Mystery'? Except that 'you close the door, the night could last forever.' Which is true.

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Reed considered each song to be impersonal "little plays". Apart from the forceful rockers "What Goes On" and "Beginning to See the Light", the album contains reflective, melodic songs that are about various forms of love, The song took two sessions to record, and its poem was later included in The Paris Review. Darling reappears in Reed's 1972 song "Walk on the Wild Side".

"What Goes On" is upbeat and combines multiple lead guitar parts against an organ; this organ, played by Yule, is present in more songs on the record. Kory Grow of Rolling Stone described Reed's guitar solo on the song as "bagpipe-y".

"Some Kinda Love" contains salacious lyrics, contrasting the record, but it still has subdued elements—Tucker only uses a cowbell and bass drum. It ambiguously describes love, specifically religious love. Reed references "The Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot. He writes about two characters, Tom and Marguerita, detailing a seductive conversation between them. Victor Bockris cites this as another example "where [Reed] makes rock lyrics function as literature". Grow said that the song explains how love is uniform, while "Pale Blue Eyes" simply discussed "another kind of love", specifically adultery, according to Reed.

"Pale Blue Eyes" has been called one of Reed's greatest love songs—Morrison singled it out from the album in a 1981 interview. The composition of it dates back to 1966; it had been performed live since mid-1966. It describes adultery and sinning as an extension of the album's religious references. It was inspired by Reed's girlfriend at the time, Shelley Albin. According to Reed, he wrote it for someone he missed who had hazel eyes; it references "I'll Be Your Mirror" and Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me by Richard Fariña. Additionally, Sesnick speculates that some lines are about Cale's firing. Tucker plays a tambourine. featuring the band sitting sedately on a couch at The Factory. Name was paid 300 dollars for the photograph, which was the most he had been paid at the time for a picture. Yule and Tucker are looking at Reed, and Morrison is looking away—according to Tucker, this is because Reed was talking about the magazine cover. The album cover's text "The Velvet Underground" is written using the Kabel Light typeface. The back cover is a picture of Reed smoking, divided in two halves with one of them upside down, both only showing the left side of his face. Each side includes the track listing and credits for the record, which are also upside down in that part of the picture. Reed held an issue of Harper's Bazaar which was airbrushed out. The cover artwork led to the record being dubbed "The Grey Album".

Release

thumb|left|upright=0.9|The full-page advertisement that MGM used for promotion of "What Goes On"

The release date of the band's "third album" was given in a November 1968 article in Los Angeles Free Press as January 1969; the full album was previewed by Danish magazine ' in January 1969. Phil Morris of MGM told Record World on February 22, 1969, that the album was ready for release. When the album was released in March 1969, the songwriting credits listed the entire band as its composer, even though Reed wrote all of its songs. Later releases would instead label Reed as the sole composer. The band switched from Verve Records to parent label MGM for unknown reasons—Sesnick says that the rock division of Verve was close to closing, while Morrison says that this simply was "an administrative change". Ultimately, the decision to move to MGM was Sesnick's.

Two mixes of the album were released. The initial mix is Reed's which boosts his vocals and lowers its instruments, which was the first mix sold in the United States. Morrison noted that it sounds like it was recorded in a closet, which led to its label as the "closet mix". Valentin produced a more conventional mix, which Yule would later say he was unaware of. The more widely distributed mix is the one credited to Valentin, which was distributed throughout Europe.

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Unterberger noted how The Velvet Underground sounded far more commercial than any of the band's previous albums and labeled it as the point where critical reception of the band became more positive. Despite this, however, the album failed to chart, and was less successful than the group's previous two. He later included it in his "Basic Record Library" of 1950s and 1960s recordings, published in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981).

Lester Bangs, writing in Rolling Stone magazine, felt that it is not on-par with White Light/White Heat and has missteps with "The Murder Mystery" and "Pale Blue Eyes", but ultimately said that its combination of powerfully expressive music and profoundly sentimental lyrics will persuade the band's detractors into believing they can "write and play any kind of music they want to with equal brilliance." Paul Williams of Crawdaddy declared that "everybody loves" the band's new release and labeled it his personal favorite since Forever Changes by Love. Bob Stark for Creem observed how it was "as 'far out' as either of the two [previous albums]". Lenny Kaye reviewed the record for Jazz & Pop, labeling it "almost lyrical in its beauty." Other newspapers such as Chicago Seed, Record World, Cashbox, and the more mainstream Variety praised the album, with the latter stating that it is "an important contribution to the lyrical advancement of rock". Adrian Ribolla of Oz, however, lamented that the "Velvet Underground don't really sound together on this album". Additionally, Broadside from Massachusetts longed for the older sound of the band. Melody Maker, while praising the album, simultaneously dismissed it by commenting it is "not sensational, but interesting". Retrospectively in October 1969, Richard Williams of the same magazine elaborated that "the old cruelty was still there", labeling the old Melody Maker review as erroneous and hailing the band's first three albums as "a body of work which is easily as impressive as any in rock".

Reappraisal

The Velvet Underground did not impact the Billboard 200 until its 1985 reissue, when it reached No. 197. According to Billboard in 2013, The Velvet Underground has sold 201,000 copies since 1991, when Nielsen SoundScan began tracking record sales. In The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), Rob Sheffield wrote that after Cale's departure, the band became "acoustic folkie balladeers" and that Reed was unexpectedly charming on the album, whose "every song is a classic". In 2003, it was ranked number 314 by Rolling Stone on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The 2012 edition saw it dropped to 316, and the 2020 edition moved it up to 143. NME magazine named it the 21st best album of all time in a list of the 100 Best Albums of All Time. Pitchforks 2017 list of the 200 best albums of the 1960s ranked it at number 12, above Electric Ladyland by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Ultimate Classic Rock listed it in its unranked Top 100 Albums of the 1960s. Uncut listed it at number 52 on its 200 Greatest Albums of All Time, above Third/Sister Lovers by Big Star but behind Tapestry by Carole King.

Robert Dimery included the album in the 2018 edition of his book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Reissues

Along with the group's first three albums, The Velvet Underground received a reissue in 1985. These reissues were unexpectedly successful, which led to further releases under PolyGram such as Another View. The album was included in the box set Peel Slowly and See, and would later be reissued as a Super Deluxe edition for its 45th anniversary, including mono versions of tracks, demos, and live performances.