Record covers featuring Nico beyond The Velvet Underground and her solo work

Nico is too often reduced to her brief association with The Velvet Underground and her role as a Warhol muse, yet her life and legacy extend far beyond that chapter. In fact, that period is marginal when compared to the originality, influence, and lasting significance of her work. As an artist, muse, collaborator, and cultural figure, her impact resonates deeply across post punk, avant garde, art rock, neoclassical, minimal, drone, darkwave, goth, industrial, and experimental music, while also extending into fashion and film, most notably through her collaborations with Philippe Garrel.

Albums created in collaboration with John Cale, such as The Marble Index, Desertshore, The End… and Camera Obscura, rejected convention entirely and anticipated whole underground movements years before others would catch up. From Brian Eno, Siouxsie, Joy Division, Bauhaus, The Cure, Morrissey, Mark E. Smith, and Diamanda Galás to PJ Harvey, Chelsea Wolfe, Anika, and many others, countless artists owe a direct or indirect debt to Nico’s dark and uncompromised vision.

But beyond her solo work and influence as an artist, Nico’s broader impact as a symbol, embodying both darkness and light, is also reflected in the recurring use of her image on record covers for projects in which she had no involvement whatsoever. Many of these covers reuse photographs from early fashion shoots, taken when Nico was working as a model in Germany and France, in the company of artists like Fellini, Gainsbourg, and Delon, prior to becoming involved with Andrew Loog Oldham and later with Warhol and the Velvets. These appearances on record sleeves span from the early 1960s until 2015 and cut across genres as diverse as easy listening, blues, jazz, chanson, indie rock, and techno.

There is something deeply bizarre in this contrast, and it only adds to the myth of Nico. Who would have imagined in the early 1960s that the young German model appearing on these sleeves would later write The Marble Index?

The Bill Evans Trio – Moon Beams
Riverside Records, 1962
Jazz

Serge Gainsbourg – Strip-Tease (Bande Originale Du Film)
Philips, 7", 1963
Jazz, Stage & Screen, Cool Jazz

Emil Stern Et Son Orchestre – Hit Parade
Barclay, 1963
Easy Listening

Casey Anderson – Blues Is A Woman Gone
ATCO Records, 1965
Blues, Folk, World, & Country

The Tattoos – Corny Horny / Massachusetts
Telefunken, single, 1967
Soul-Jazz, Jazz-Funk, Easy Listening

The Tattoos – Pops Go Trumpet
Telefunken, 1967
Soul-Jazz, Jazz-Funk, Easy Listening

Seroka – Laisse-Moi Pleurer / Stephanie
Disques Festival, 7", 1968
Chanson

Storyville – She
Nursery, 12", 1991
Indie Rock

Various – Collectors #3
CD, Compilation, France, 2009
Rock, Pop

The Legendary Tigerman* & Hifiklub – Ghost Of Nico
France, 2012
Rock

Room 506 – Drop Out
Not On Label, 12", 2015
Techno

elektrObath* – Femme Fatale
Hot Fuzz –     10 x File, FLAC
Harsh Noise Wall, Noise