At the middle half of the 60s, while the world was going through a cultural revolution, there was a group that worked on  pop culture's future. The band, which would later become baptised as, The Velvet Underground, came from the combined genius of a singer, songwriter and guitarist named Lou Reed and a multi-talented musician from Wales, John Cale.

Reed started out as a student at Syracuse University in New York, but decided to drop out to brave it in the music industry at Pickwick Records in the Big Apple, where he got his first job as staff composer. He wrote songs resembling the latest fads in pop music, including The Ostrich, which took after Chubby Checker's 1961 hit, The Twist. The company was pleased with Reed's work and encouraged him to start a band.

In 1964, Reed enlisted John Cale to play viola and keyboard and started up “The Primitives.” The two realised they clicked as a team, especially for songwriting. Several gigs later at venues such as art galleries and high school dances, they hired Angus MacLise on drums and guitarist Sterling Morrison. They soon changed names to “The Velvet Underground” in '65, and recorded a demo in Cale's Manhattan apartment.

Not too long after, drummer MacLise decided that the band didn't suit him, so he ventured into areas such as film and poetry. Maureen Tucker, the sister of Reed's college buddy, with her make-shift garbage can lid drumset, made a good impression and got herself hired as percussionist.

The band set up shop as the house band at Cafe Bizarre, south of Manhattan, and they worked hard for their first major opportunity. They were given an ultimatum by management, warning them to not play Black Angel's Death Song, which they did and consequently were shown out the door. Luckily, prior to getting fired at the cafe, they met the iconic pop artist of the 60s, Andy Warhol, who wanted to see why The Velvet Underground was the talk of the town. Lou Reed and the gang contacted Warhol, who immediately liked the band's in-your-face attitude and hired them to perform at his Cinematique Uptight film presentations.

Warhol then integrated the band into his multimedia exhibit called, Exploding Plastic Inevitable. The artist had his eyes set on an attractive German actress-turned-singer, Nico, who came on board, adding her croon to the mix. Together with Nico, the band recorded their first album, entitled The Velvet Underground and Nico, released in March 1967. The record's cover design was blessed by the  Warhol-touch that boasted a painting of a bright, yellow cartoon-like banana.

The album, which included songs pertaining to drugs like the Reed-composed Heroin, got mixed reviews and just barely made it to Billboard's Hot 200 at #171. However, the band definitely gained some publicity by having Warhol  involved. Their short lucky spell wore off after Warhol saw them out of his “factory,” where Nico remained.

Having lost popularity in New York, the band headed to Boston after they recorded a second album in 1968, White Light/White Heat, which was a boisterous disappointment. There were seemingly too many cooks in the kitchen, when Cale and Reed began to butt heads, resulting in Cale's departure. Doug Yule stepped in as the next multi-instrumental artist to help the band finish their more-subdued, eponymous album at a Los Angeles studio on MGM. The company dropped the band, following yet another album that bombed.

Into the 70s, the label Cotillion, an affiliate of Atlantic Records, endorsed the Velvets, allowing the group's last concerted effort, Loaded, to be released. Decades later, the single Sweet Jane, from their fourth album, would become renowned after being put on Quentin Tarantino's soundtrack for Natural Born Killers. Maureen Tucker quit to focus on raising her family in 1970, while Reed and Morrison found themselves uninspired and burnt out. Still though, the band had one more album to crank out, according to their contract, so a fully-charged Yule took it upon himself to compose the next songs for the album Squeeze in1971, recorded in London and only released abroad. Many die-hard fans rejected the new material, since Yule's style was different than that of Reed's or Cale's. Finally, a bootlegged tape was recorded by a fan at a show. This decent recording allowed the band to terminate their contract and pacify Atlantic, with the issue of Max's Kansas City.

Sterling Morrison, who earned a doctorate in medieval studies after the band's demise, took up a second career teaching at Texas A&M University, while Reed went solo. With the back of David Bowie, Reed signed on with RCA and got his juices flowing again to record Transformer, on which the highly-recognised song, A Walk On The Wild Side, appeared. Fans and critics say that Reed was at his creative best with his work on one of his many albums, entitled New York, which was his take on the twisted sex and drug culture, amongst other things, in the big city.

Cale reunited with former bandmate Nico and produced her successful solo album, The Marble Index. Still talented, he had a fruitful solo career and was intertwined in substantial collaborations with artists, such as Patti Smith and Brian Eno. After ex-manager Andy Warhol died in 1987 of a post-surgery heart attack, Cale and Reed put their problems aside to focus on creating a Warhol tribute album. Songs for Drella, released in 1989, proved again that the two, if on the same team, could create wonders together. Nico didn't live to see the album.  She died of head injuries after she crashed in a motorcycle accident in 1988.

Although the Velvet Underground never got to celebrate how great they were as a whole, eventually they did wind up going down in history for how their music has inspired many musicians that followed. The band was awarded one of the most prestigious awards in music, an induction into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, for which Reed, Cale and Tucker were present. Sterling Morrison passed away from cancer the year before, and therefore couldn't share his deserved moment of glory.