LOU REED

Oh Lou, oh Lou, what are we to make of you....?

Forever to be most lionized for four (five) records you made the better part of fifty years ago.  To have your entire half-a-century career stand in the shadow of a mere 8% or so of your entire body of work.  An 8% done at the beginning of your career.  To have everything you've done since 1970 judged, usually invidiously, against your first work.

Yes, that has to suck.  No wonder you've got a long-standing rep as a disagreeable shithead.  I gotta tell ya, I don't blame you.

But let's tell the truth.  Those first few years have gotten you an awful lot of slack, man.  I mean really ... even if it just meant music geeks who kept checking in with you all these years hoping for (at first) a taste of the genius (and man, it was genius ... it truly was).  And then later, hoping for a glimpse of it at least.  And then, in the end, all the times we've had to say (to non-believers) "Okay, okay, I know - it sucks - but dammit it's Lou Reed!!"

Of course, the problem is, you did keep giving us that glimpse.  Every now and then.  Not often enough, man.  I remember listening to New York and thinking - "Shit!  He's back!"  


This cop who died in Harlem
You think they'd get the warnin'
I was dancing when I saw his brains run out on the street

No one could pull off Chandleresque lines in a rock and roll song like that but you, man.  And what the late-comers, the imitators, the countless (countless, countless) followers who you inspired never (never, never) could understand about what made you tick, is, when you're on your game, anyway, you never failed to follow up some gloriously ugly bit of gutter poetry like that with an even more gloriously beautiful one:


The perfume burned his eyes
Holding tightly to her thighs
And something flickered for a minute
And then it vanished and was gone

Yeah, Dylan brought the beat poetry in all its surreal glory, but you brought Delmore Schwartz and Raymond Chandler.  It never sprawled.  You were always tight and right and disciplined.  You learned all the right lessons from Delmore, didn't you?  You've always been an academic's dream.  You might have learned from the beats, but yours was a more terse, more biting, more traditional way.  All muscle and strength and hard eyes.

So why'd you have to spend the crucial years, the decade post-Velvets, wandering lost?  A limp, lost first album full of Velvets outtakes that got smoked when the demos leaked out on bootlegs (and later, oh-ficial releases) (damn, you had money - couldn't you have at least tried to talk Sterl and Moe and Doug, if not Cale, back into the fold?).  Followed it up veering from junkie-queen cartoons to morbid rock operas to competent but dull (to really dull) - but every now you'd peek out from behind the masks (bleached blonde, iron crosses shaved into your head, Lou-as-Frankenstein) with something like "Coney Island Baby," or "Walk," or "Street Hassle."  Let's not even talk about the disco album.

Okay, then you kicked your habit and got your ass together and got another tight band and churned out some nice, sober stuff that was too damn literate for its own good.  And it looked like you might really have it with The Blue Mask, thanks in part to Quine, I suspect.  Hell, you even managed another hit.  Cute song too even if it still made us believers kinda cringe ("yeah, it's cute, it's catchy, I'm glad he got a hit but ... damn this is the guy who wrote `Heroin,' fer fucks sake...").  After that it was throwaways, until you dropped New York on us and we knew you still had it.  For sure.

Since then you've gone all respectable on us, and at least we can count on a Lou album to be interesting and have one or two moments.  But man, ever since you decided to be a literati (c. The Raven), its getting hard to follow.  I don't like this shit coming out of Pete Townshend and he's got a better sense of melody than you anymore, man (p.s. love the clip of you and Pete - how'd it take this damn long for you to get together?  Was it cuz he used to drink with Cale?).  Metallica was a bad (bad, bad) move, man.  Someone else (very sagely, and I wish I knew who so I could credit him) said it was the first time you'd ever played with a drummer who didn't groove.

Oh, I know.  You don't give a shit what I, or anyone else thinks.  And that's one of the things I love best about you, man.  And I do love you, y'know, you old shithead.  Cuz every time you put something out, whether its genius (New York, Spanish Fly) or an unlistenable piece of shit (Lulu), well, dammit, you're Lou Reed!

Lou Reed Allmusic
Lou Reed Wiki
Official Page
The Rock and Roll Animal page (very comprehensive!)


Essential Listening

New York most consistent Lou album out there - barely a weak track to be found.

Sally Can't Dance despite being condemned by many Lou fans as a cheap sellout, I find this one pretty  consistent and good listening.

Rock and Roll Animal a legendary late `73 recording from NYC.  Lots of guitar wank and noodling, and I think his solo numbers benefit more from the metal/arena workout they get here than most of the Velvets material, but he's in fine voice anyway and, well, it is pretty great for guitar wank.  Lou Reed Live is more of the same - nice workout on "Walk On The Wild Side" makes it worthwhile.  Download both and slap `em on a CD and you've got the whole show.  

Live in Italy with Bob Quine on guitar.  A tough, tight, terse show.  More disciplined than Animal and I'll take Quine/Reed over Johnstone/Hunter (with all due respect to Davey and Steve) any day.  Great workouts on "Sister Ray," "White Light White Heat" and "Some Kinda Love," done as a hard blues.

Street Hassle a weird mess of an album, but the title track and "Dirt" and "I Wanna Be Black" are must-hears.

Take No Prisoners as much stand-up monologues as music - Lord Buckley he ain't - but I admit his ranting during "Sweet Jane" is hilarious, and his extended babbling and attack on rock critics during "Walk" comes close.  Forgotten in most discussions of this one is that the band is hot and kicks ass.  Funniest record he ever made.  Essential just for shock value.

Between Thought and Expression anything else essential (as far as I'm concerned) can be found here.  Most essential - extended workout on "Heroin" with Don Cherry backing him.  Amazing track and the best non-Velvets version of that one ever.  Although Roky Erickson's is pretty fun, too.

Essential Viewing

Rock and Roll Heart rock solid documentary, tracing the r'n'r animal's career from Velvets days to the end of the 90's.  Some great rare footage.

Spanish Fly - Live in Spain live in (surprise!) Spain with guitarist Mike Rathke, bassist/backing vocalist Fernando Saunders, drummer Tony "Thunder" Smith, and secret weapon cellist Jane Scarpantoni.  Very cool stuff.

Essential Reading

Transformer by Victor Bockris highly controversial bio.  Anything that pisses dedicated Lou fans off this much has to have something going for it.  Not a flattering picture of the man but a fair assessment of him as an artist.

Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung by Lester Bangs essential reading for anyone who likes good rock writing, or good writing period.  Several pieces are here from Bangs near-legendary battles with Reed - hysterical reading in more ways than one.