Well, there's the edgy artsy VU with John Cale, and there's the happy ballady VU with Doug Yule. They're almost 2 different bands. It would be like if Lennon left the Beatles and was replaced by Ringo's cousin Nigel.
The Velvet Underground is a respectable answer. Would also accept the Ramones, New York Dolls, the MC5, CCR, Buffalo Springfield, Pere Ubu, The Stooges, CSNY, or ? and the Mysterians.
I think I would vote for the Ramones, because they sounded so great live.
I used to have the first album in the CD-ROM in lieu of the original cd's soundtrack while playing "Hardwar" and this somehow made sense. Thanks for posting this.