China's Underground Historians

After the Velvet Underground cut three albums for Verve Records that earned them lots of notoriety but negligible sales, the group signed with industry powerhouse Atlantic Records in 1970; label head Ahmet Ertegun supposedly asked Lou Reed to avoid sex and drugs in his songs, and instead make an album "loaded with hits." …

The Velvet Underground are arguably the most important American band of the second half of the '60s, but few seemed to think so at the time. The Velvets flew under the radar of public recognition through most of their career, and no one bothered to professionally record their live shows between 1966 and 1970…

TransGlobal Underground is a U.K.-based collective fusing as many different kinds of world music as its members can get their hands on. The group's core is composed of vocalist Natacha Atlas (who has recorded with Jah Wobble, Apache Indian, and her own band, Atlas Project), keyboardist Alex Kasiek, drum programmer Man Tu, and founder, bassist, and sampler Count Dubulah. The project grew out of a mutual love for dance, avant-garde, Arabic, and world music and draws on each member's listening tastes and cultural backgrounds. Their debut album, Dream of 100 Nations, was released in 1994, quickly followed by International Times.

The world of pop music was hardly ready for the Velvet Underground's first album when it appeared in the spring of 1967, but while The Velvet Underground and Nico sounded like an open challenge to conventional notions of what rock music could sound like (or what it could discuss), 1968's White Light/White Heat was a no-holds-barred frontal assault on cultural and aesthetic propriety…

This 2 CD soundtrack was curated by the documentary's director Todd Haynes, and music supervisor Randall Poster. It features well-known and rare tracks from the Velvet Underground, as well as songs and performances that influenced the band including the doo-wop of the Diablos, the groundbreaking rock n' roll of Bo Diddley, and the avant-garde compositions of La Monte Young.

The Best of The Velvet Underground: The Millennium Collection is a compilation album by The Velvet Underground. It was initially released for the North American market by Polydor in October 2000 as part of their "20th Century Masters" series of budget compilations celebrating the turn of the century.