Talk:The Velvet Underground & Nico

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The Velvet Underground & Nico has been listed as one of the Music good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

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Date	Process	Result
May 23, 2007	Good article nominee	Listed
July 17, 2009	Good article reassessment	Delisted
September 12, 2017	Good article nominee	Listed

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Velvet Underground & Nico description of sales figures[edit]

I would like to change the description of the sales figures for this album from "poorly" to "decently" or "respectably" in the second paragraph: "The Velvet Underground & Nico initially sold poorly, but later became regarded as one of the most influential albums in rock and pop music."

I changed it previously to decently, taking that word from elsewhere in the article, but an editor changed it back to poorly.

Elsewhere in the article, it states that the sales were "decent": "While it indeed sold less than Warhol and the band had hoped, according to a MGM royalty statement gifted to Jeff Gold, a former Warner Bros. Records executive, 58,476 copies of the album sold through February 1969—a decent figure for a late-1960s LP."

Essentially the notion of what constituted poor, decent, good or great sales through the lates 60s is very different than today's perspective. At the time of this album's release, nearly 60k sales in two years would be considered a good number for a band with no hit singles on AM radio.

Thank you. Henryknox (talk) 16:10, 25 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Words like "decently" or "respectably" are flimsy and sort of colloquial. It's best to phrase this in concrete terms. If it was reported by sources as a commercial failure or that it didn't meet financial expectations then say that instead. Popcornfud (talk) 16:54, 25 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thank you very much. So something like this "While The Velvet Underground & Nico has been reported to have been commercially unsuccessful upon its initial release, the album sold nearly 60 thousand records through February 1969. It later became regarded as one of the most influential albums in rock and pop music." Henryknox (talk) 18:24, 25 January 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Role of Andy Warhol[edit]

The "Production" section says that Warhol "had little influence beyond paying for the recording sessions", but the caption of the photo in the same section says that he "played a major role in its production". If we're saying that paying for the sessions equates to a major role, then fine. But it seems somewhat contradictory to me. --Viennese Waltz 09:04, 14 April 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]