Andy's VU banana cover starts a fight
When is a banana more than just a banana? When it involves one of the 1960s biggest artists and musical acts apparently. Seminal 1967 record The Velvet Underground & Nico (AKA The Banana Album) features one of the most iconic images in rock n' roll history and arguably cemented The Velvet Underground's reputation as the house band for an era. Now its bright yellow drawing of a banana done by Warhol (who produced the album and discovered the band) is at the center of a nasty legal fight.
On one side are band members Lou Reed and John Cale who have routinely been using the image to promote merchandise, reunion tours and the like for decades. On the other side is the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts (AWF) who has been freely using the image and even licensing it to other parties as if they owned it. Complicating matters is the fact that copyright laws have changed in the intervening years since the release of the record (which originally allowed listeners to actually pull the peel back.) For younger music fans the burning question remains, ''what's album art?"
| The Velvet Underground, "Sunday Morning" | |
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