In February 1966, Warhol announced that he was sponsoring a band: the Velvet Underground. After seeing them play one of their first shows, Warhol asked the Velvets—Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Maureen “Moe” Tucker—to provide musical accompaniment for a screening of his films. “We were doing what he was doing," Reed recalls, "except we were using music and he was doing it with lights.” Warhol later invited the band to rehearse at the Factory, providing them with new, louder amplifiers. He also recruited German chanteuse, Nico Päffgen, to serve as the band’s second lead vocalist. Warhol went on to produce and provide cover art for the band's first album, The Velvet Underground and Nico (1967), as well as to design the art for their second release, White Light/White Heat (1968). This playlist combines tracks from each of the Velvets' four albums, along with songs from solo releases by Cale, Reed and Nico through 1972.
