I remember Walk on the Wild Side had a lot of radio play when I was a kid. It’s from Lou Reed’s second solo album, Transformer (1972).

I can’t relate to the lyrics, and yet it’s still fun to sing along to. The bass seems simple at first, but it’s sublime, and carries the whole song.

From Wiki, about the group The Velvet Underground:

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The Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City in 1964. It originally comprised the singer and guitarist Lou Reed, the Welsh multi-instrumentalist John Cale, the guitarist Sterling Morrison and the drummer Angus MacLise.

In 1965, MacLise was replaced by Moe Tucker, who played on most of the band’s recordings.

Though their integration of rock and the avant-garde earned them little commercial success, they are now widely regarded as one of the most influential bands in rock, underground, experimental, and alternative music. Their provocative subject matter, experimentation, and nihilistic attitude were also instrumental in the development of punk rock, new wave and several other genres.

The group performed under several names before settling on the Velvet Underground in 1965, taken from the title of a 1963 book on atypical sexual behavior.

In 1966, the pop artist Andy Warhol became their manager. They served as the house band at Warhol’s studio, the Factory, and his traveling multimedia show, the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, from 1966 to 1967.

Their debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico, featuring the German singer and model Nico, was released in 1967 to critical indifference and poor sales but later drew widespread acclaim. They released three more albums: the abrasive White Light/White Heat (1968), and the more accessible albums The Velvet Underground (1969) and Loaded (1970), with Doug Yule replacing Cale on the latter two.

None performed to the expectations of record labels or Reed, the band’s leader. However, like the band’s debut, all albums later achieved critical acclaim.
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And here, about the album The Velvet Underground & Nico:

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The Velvet Underground & Nico is the debut studio album by the American rock band the Velvet Underground and the German singer Nico.

Released by Verve Records in March 1967, the album underperformed in sales and polarized critics upon release due to its abrasive, unconventional sound and controversial lyrical content. It later became regarded as one of the most influential albums in rock and pop music and one of the greatest albums of all time.

The Velvet Underground & Nico was recorded in 1966 while the band were featured on Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable tour. Warhol, who designed the album’s record sleeve, served as co-producer alongside Tom Wilson.

The album features elements of avant-garde music incorporated into brash, minimal and groove-driven rock music. Lead singer and songwriter Lou Reed delivers explicit lyrics spanning themes of drug abuse, prostitution, sadomasochism and urban life.

Characterized as “the original art-rock record”, it was a major influence on many subgenres of rock and alternative music, including punk, garage rock, krautrock, post-punk, post-rock, noise rock, shoegaze, gothic rock, and indie rock.

In 1982, the English musician Brian Eno quipped that while the album only sold approximately 30,000 copies in its first five years, “everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band”.

The Velvet Underground & Nico has been included on several all-time lists, including that of Apple Music and Rolling Stone.

In 2006, it was inducted into the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
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