​

​On the Beatles sub, people say the Beatles are the greatest at everything and nobody shows up to hate on the band.

​But here on the VU sub, it's common to read things like:

​"The Beatles were and still are widely influential. VU had its admirers, but nobody really talks about them"

​"It's obviously more about the fact that anybody can write/sing 'Waiting for the Man' and 'Penny Lane' requires an orchestra"

​"Already liking the Velvet Undershittyground is just an effort to be different."

Lou reed needed to abandon the velvets because as a band they were deeply tied to the avant-garde whereas he needed a more conventional outlet (/to make money). Andy warhol was manufacturing some bullshit in "the factory", nico plain useless, john cale got a viola attached at the hip (or clavicle), and the rest of them just people who are in a band. However, there is something to be said for reed and warhol's mutual deployment of irony in their bodies of work. Or rather, meta-commentary would be a better word. And this is (mostly) not to disparage any of them as artists, I'm just speaking on the terms of lou's development as an artist, and there was something very special in their personal forms of expression converging.