VU (album)
1985 compilation album by The Velvet Underground
VU is an album by the American rock band the Velvet Underground, released in February 1985 by Verve Records and consisting of material recorded in 1968 and 1969.
VU has been critically acclaimed both in contemporary and retrospective reviews.
Background
When the Velvet Underground moved from Verve Records (which had released their first two albums) to parent company MGM Records, they signed a two-album deal, releasing their third album The Velvet Underground in March 1969. This was their first record with multi-instrumentalist Doug Yule, who replaced John Cale. Later that year there was a management change and MGM Records' new CEO, Mike Curb, was brought in to try to rescue the financially struggling label. He decided to purge the record company of its unprofitable acts. The Velvet Underground were already inclined to leave the label by then and would later sign with Atlantic Records, which released their fourth studio album, Loaded, in November 1970.
In the meantime, in 1969, the band recorded fourteen tracks for possible release as their second MGM (and fourth overall) album. All of these were shelved and forgotten by the record company until the early 1980s. The band's drummer Moe Tucker later said:
We didn't say we'll just go in and lay down anything and screw 'em.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “VU (album)” is 1985 compilation album by The Velvet Underground. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through album, compilation and Velvet, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “1985 compilation album by The Velvet Underground” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2606531. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1985, 1968, 1969 and 1970.
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This entry incorporates text from “VU (album)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.