Haynes’s movies to date, including the queer costume drama Carol and the Bob Dylan non-biopic I’m Not There, have elegantly bridged entertainment and experimentation, and The Velvet Underground does that too. Read: HBO’s Woodstock ’99 documentary is a dark warning The seemingly straightforward title is a feint: While the group took its name from a 1963 book on sexual fetishes, the documentary subtly suggests that velvet underground could refer to a particular type of subculture-one in which the lowbrow and the highbrow, the outsider and the careerist, the hater and the pleaser, challenge society in a manner that succeeds in changing it. To understand the nature of the band’s endurance, and the nature of niche cool in any era, turn to Todd Haynes’s bewitching new documentary, The Velvet Underground, out now on Apple TV+. Wearing black and looking jaded never seems to go out of style-and you can hear echoes of the Velvet Underground’s hazy, lurid songs when exploring rebellious music scenes today. But the most obscure band to ever be called “iconic” still has a claim to coolness. The Velvet Underground has not entirely escaped aging into banality: Replications of the Andy Warhol image of a banana that graced the group’s debut album now grace junk at the mall. Everyone who wasn’t at Woodstock is all too aware that they’ll never go to Woodstock. ![]() The flower children’s children grew up in a world in which their elders’ revolutionary artworks had become wallpaper, trinkets, and ad fodder. Part of the backlash now facing Baby Boomers-seen in all those memes and essays blaming grandma for the state of capitalism-may simply stem from overexposure.
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