The Velvet Underground and The Beatles both have albums preserved in the National Recording Registry (NRR). In 2003 The Beatle’s 1967 album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” was added, and four years later the Velvet Undergrounds 1967 debut album “The Velvet Underground and Nico” was included as well. The NRR states that the recordings included in the registry are, “…culturally, historically or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States.” Considering that the registry grows by twenty-five to fifty recording a year, and that the two albums were released so close together, it might not be easy for future viewers and listeners of the NRR’s registry to understand just how different the two groups that made these recordings were. The Beatles are perhaps the biggest rock group of all time. Some of their records on the billboard chart still have yet to be bettered. The Velvet Underground never had a number one record, and their albums have sold cumulatively a fraction of what the Beatle’s sold this year alone. In spite of the sharp differences between the two, both made lasting impacts on the music to come in the next forty years.

Though their gestation was prolonged, The Beatle’s beginnings seem almost charmed. In 1956, a sixteen year old John Lennon started The Quarrymen. Throughout the next eight years, the group would undergo several lineup and name changes, finally settling on the name The Beatles. By the time The Beatles released their second single in 1962, they were already a hit act on the path to stardom. Nearly all of the music Beatles recorded and performed in the early years of their career related to girl-boy scenarios of teenage love. The Beatles became superstars by projecting in their songs visions of the sort of idealistic love their audience longed for; but, also by being attractive, funny young men who were capable of having fantasies projected upon them by their audience.

By contrast, The Velvet Underground was alienating from the start and their inception was somewhat more tenuous. The Velvet’s founding members Lou Reed and John Cale formed The Primitives sometime between 1964 and 1965 and, after several incarnations under different names, decided to christen themselves after a book on sadomasochism. Pop artist Andy Warhol agreed to manage the group and his association brought a somewhat higher profile to them, though it did little to enhance their commercial prospects. “The Velvet Underground and Nico” came out the year of the summer of love, the peak of the hippie era, and couldn’t have been more out of step with the zeitgeist. While The Velvet’s sang boy meets girl songs, the girl in the song “There She Goes” is likely a prostitute and the rest of the record was even less palatable. Upon release, it only reached the lower edge of top 200 and none of the album’s songs charted as singles. With its portraits of heroin abuse, life in New York’s ghettos and its instrumental passages of atonal droning, the band’s first release fell on deaf ears and flopped.

After reaching the heights of commercial success as recording artists and as a live act, The Beatle’s mid period began with their decision in 1965 to stop touring. From then on, the group would spend ever larger amounts of time and money experimenting in the recording studio. 1967’s “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” was a departure from their earlier sound, a concept album full of multi-tracked effects and surreal imagery. Perhaps as a nod to their dissatisfaction with the isolation their fame brought, the concept of the album was the group playing under a different and name and as a different band. The record debuted at number one on the billboard album charts and was heralded as a masterpiece. The Beatles also left behind their teen idol image and increasingly embraced hippie culture, experimenting with LSD and traveling to India to explore eastern spirituality. In the midst of both creative and commercial success, the second act of the group’s career found its members becoming increasingly independent from the band itself.

This same period for The Velvet Underground was a mix of polarizing creativity, personnel changes and waning commercial prospects. The next two albums the band would make would be drastically different from each other and the group’s debut. After touring behind their first album and parting ways with Andy Warhol, The Velvet’s released “White Light/White Heat” arrived just eleven months after “The Velvet Underground and Nico”. The title track, an ode to shooting amphetamine, opened the album, segwayed into a spoken word piece and shortly thereafter ended with a seventeen minute long noise rock workout entitled “Sister Ray”. The album bombed. Lead guitarist John Cale left the band shortly after due to creative differences with Reed, and much of the band’s equipment was stolen on the tour. If only because they no longer had their old electric amplifier, the band’s third recording was polar opposite of the second. If “White Light/White Heat” saw the band at their most frenzied, their self titled third album was by far their most reflective. Despite being filled with more melodic material, “The Velvet Underground” failed to make the charts, and the band ended their second chapter in a decidedly precarious state.

The final three years of The Beatles career as a band were chaotic. The members wrote and recorded their songs largely apart from one another, sometimes even in different studios. They attempted to start their own record company and build their own studio, but the members had little business acumen and both projects floundered. Sessions for the band’s “Let It Be” were filmed for release as a documentary and show the once happy-go-lucky fab four tense and argumentative. Upon completing the album, none of the members wanted to release it, but because so much money had been invested in the project it did eventually come out after being remixed by an outside producer. The Beatles ultimately parted ways bitterly. Financial and business quarrels over The Beatle’s company combined with growing personal differences ultimately spelled the end of the band and its members officially dissolved the group in 1970. Though they members collaborated sporadically on each other’s solo work and huge sums offered by concert promoters, the band never reunited or played together as a group after their breakup.

Much like the Beatles breakup, The Velvet Underground’s ending had been coming for some time. The band was dropped from their record label in 1969. After being finding a new home on Atlantic Records, the group was told to make a record that was, “…loaded with hits…” and the group promptly titled their next release “Loaded” and headed into the studio. Fed up with the band’s lack of sucess, Loud Reed quit The Velvet Underground nearing the end of the sessions for “Loaded”. Finalizing of the album was completed without Reed and he has commented in interview that he was surprised when he found the record in stores upon its release. After Reeds departure the remaining band members of the group, none of which were original members of the band, attempted to continue on but met with little prospects. Reed began a solo career in the ensuing years and scored a hit two years later with the single “Walk On The Wild Side”. During the 1990s, the original members of the band reunited to perform live sporadically, and their final performance was in 1996 at their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

In the years after their breakup, the reputation of both The Velvet Under and The Beatles has grown. The Velvet’s became a cult phenomenon after their breakup, and legions of punk and post-punk groups have cited the groups’ records as influences. A quote widely attributed to composer Brian Eno perhaps sums up their legacy best: “Only five thousand people ever bought a Velvet Underground album, but every single one of them started a band.” Despite the enormous success the Beatles achieved during their career, it might be possible to say the bands legend has grown even larger in their passing. In 1995, three disks the band’s outtakes and demos were released and all debuted at #1 on the billboard album charts. In 2000, a compilation of The Beatle’s #1 singles entitled “1” was the best selling album of the year globally. Though potential listeners of either one of these bands might not understand the story behind the music, it’s safe to say their music will be listened to for years to come, and the history behind its creation can only add to the awe of experiencing it.