Black Angel's Death Song

The Velvet Underground - "Black Angel's Death Song"

I have been thinking about the relationship between music and the images that represent it. It seems that sometimes images complement their music with accuracy and beauty, but other times it doesn't work out so sweetly. The Velvet Underground and Nico is an album with such an iconic cover that in pop culture it has almost overshadowed the music within. Nearly everyone can instantly identify that goofy banana, but I'm not convinced that the same is true for the music. For me, "Black Angel's Death Song" removes the identifier of the yellow banana from my mind and replaces it with what they really were: an endlessly creative band with achingly beautiful melodies, gritty textures, and wildly new song structures.

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