Daniel de Visé

The Velvet Underground ranks among the very greatest rock ‘n’ roll bands America has produced, on par with the Beach Boys and Byrds, Grateful Dead and R.E.M.

And it was very much a band, as Richie Unterberger documents in his exhaustive new biography, Do What You Fear Most: The History of the Velvet Underground. Lou Reed is the icon, one of rock’s great songwriters, but the Velvet Underground was a group effort.

It’s about time we had a definitive biography of the band. We already have several of Reed, including recent volumes by rock-journo heavyweights Anthony DeCurtis and Will Hermes. But you could argue that they miss the point.