First against the wall

Retracing Our Steps (2007–2014) KSCOPE

In 1966, THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO brought together the worlds of avant-garde art, European cool and downtown rock’n’roll in one explosive package. Sixty years on, the survivors share tales of drugs, breakdowns, burnouts, blocked toilets and hospital beds – and, of course, the creation of some of the most important music ever made. “We only did things our way,” learns Tom Pinnock . “We were arrogant, perhaps, in thinking we knew best. We were also right. We did know best…”

→ Mark Blamire was working for design agency Stylorouge in 1995. Then 26, he had never made a film poster before. There was a film coming out the next year based on a book. Left to right: Robert Carly

Praise be! Prog’s most devout figure, Neal Morse, gets the gang back together, dials back the sermonising and reaches for the stars on his band’s sparkling first album in five years.

Thirty years after its release, Billy Corgan looks back at the making of The Smashing Pumpkins ’ era-defining big, bold, bombastic masterpiece Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness .

Gallery red tape, a painting behind glass and the need to hide the album title meant a rocky road for creating this New Order LP cover, writes Steve Fairclough