Though The Velvet Underground were critically and commercially unsuccessful in their time, in ensuing decades they have become a constant touchstone in art rock, punk, post-punk, indie, avant pop and alternative rock. In the 1970s and 80s Lou Reed, John Cale and Nico produced a number of works that traveled a path between art and pop. In 1993 the original band members of Reed, Cale, Morrison and Tucker briefly reunited for live appearances, and afterwards Reed, Cale and briefly Tucker, continued to produce music that travelled the idiosyncratic path begun in New York in the mid-1960s.

The influence of the band and band members, mediated and promoted through famous fans such as David Bowie and Brian Eno, seems only to have expanded since the late 1960s. In 1996 the Velvet Underground were in inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, demonstrating how far the band had traveled in 30 years from an avant-garde cult to the mainstream recognition of their key contributions to popular music. In these collected essays, Pattie and Albiez present the first academic book-length collection on The Velvet Underground. The book covers a range of topics including the band's relationship to US literature, to youth and cultural movements of the 1960s and beyond and to European culture - and examines these contexts from the 1960s through to the present day.