» Edit Band Information
» Edit Albums
» Add a Review
» Add an Album
» Add News | Lou Reed
The career of Lou Reed defied capsule summarization. Like David Bowie (whom Reed directly inspired in many ways), he made over his
imagemanytimes, mutating from theatrical glam rocker to strung-out junkie to avant-garde noise man to straight rock & roller to your
average guy.Few woulddeny Reed's immense importance and considerable achievements. As has often been written, he expanded the
vocabulary of rock &roll lyrics into thepreviously forbidden territory of kinky sex, drug use (and abuse), decadence, transvestites,
homosexuality, and suicidaldepression. As has beenpointed out less of ...read more
The career of Lou Reed defied capsule summarization. Like David Bowie (whom Reed directly inspired in many ways), he made over his
imagemanytimes, mutating from theatrical glam rocker to strung-out junkie to avant-garde noise man to straight rock & roller to your
average guy.Few woulddeny Reed's immense importance and considerable achievements. As has often been written, he expanded the
vocabulary of rock &roll lyrics into thepreviously forbidden territory of kinky sex, drug use (and abuse), decadence, transvestites,
homosexuality, and suicidaldepression. As has beenpointed out less often, he remained committed to using rock & roll as a forum for literary,
mature expression throughout his artistic life, withoutgrowing lyrically soft or musically complacent. By and large, he took on these
challenging duties with uncompromisinghonesty and a high degree ofrealism. For these reasons, he was often cited as punk's most important
ancestor. It's often overlooked, though,that he was equally skilled atcelebrating romantic joy, and rock & roll itself, as he was at depicting
harrowing urban realities. With the exceptionof Neil Young, no other star whorose to fame in the '60s continued to push himself so diligently
into creating work that was, and remains,meaningful and contemporary.
Although Reed achieved his greatest success as a solo artist, his most enduring accomplishments were as the leader of the Velvet
Undergroundin the'60s. If Reed had never made any solo records, his work as the principal lead singer and songwriter for the Velvets would
have stillensured his statureas one of the greatest rock visionaries of all time. The Velvet Underground are discussed at great length in many
othersources, but it's sufficient tonote that the four studio albums they recorded with Reed at the helm are essential listening, as is much of
their liveand extraneous material. "Heroin,""Sister Ray," "Sweet Jane," "Rock and Roll," "Venus in Furs," "All Tomorrow's Parties," "What
Goes On," and"Lisa Says" are just the most famousclassics that Reed wrote and sang for the group. As innovative as the Velvets were at
breaking lyrical andinstrumental taboos with their crunchingexperimental rock, they were unappreciated in their lifetime. Five years of little
commercial success was undoubtedly a factor in Reed leaving thegroup he had founded in August 1970, just before the release of Loaded,
their most accessibleeffort. Although Reed's songs and streetwise, sing-speak vocals dominated the Velvets, he was perhaps more reliant
upon his talentedcollaborators than he realized, or was even willing to admit in hislatter years. The most talented of these associates was
John Cale, who wasapparently fired by Reed in 1968 after the Velvets' second album (althoughthe pair subsequently worked together on
various other projects).
Reed had a reputation of being a difficult man to work with for an extended period, and that made it difficult for his extensive solo oeuvre
tocompetewith the standards of brilliance set by the Velvets. Nowhere was this more apparent than on his self-titled solo debut from
1971,recorded after he'dtaken an extended hiatus from music, moving back to his parents' suburban Long Island home at one point. Lou
Reedmostly consisted of flaccidversions of songs dating back to the Velvet days, and he could have really used the group to punch them
up, asproved by the many outtake versionsof these tunes that he actually recorded with the Velvet Underground (some of which didn't
surface untilabout 25 years later). Reed got a shot in thearm (no distasteful pun intended) when David Bowie and Mick Ronson produced
Transformer,his second album. A more energetic set thatbetrayed the influence of glam rock, it also included his sole Top 20 hit, "Walk
on the Wild Side," andother good songs like "Vicious" and "Satellite ofLove." It also made him a star in Britain, which was quick to appreciate
the influence Reed hadexerted on Bowie and other glam rockers. Reed wentinto more serious territory on Berlin (1973), its sweet
orchestral production coatinglyrical messages of despair and suicide. In some ways Reed'smost ambitious and impressive solo effort, it was
accorded a vituperative reception by critics in no mood for a nonstop bummer (however elegantlyexecuted). Unbelievably, in retrospect, it
made the Top Ten in Britain, though itflopped stateside.
Having been given a cold shoulder for some of his most serious (if chilling) work, Reed apparently decided he was going to give the public
whatitwanted. He had guitarists Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner give his music more of a pop-metal, radio-friendly sheen. More disturbingly,
he decidedtoplay up to the cartoon junkie role that some in his audience seemed eager to assign to him. Onstage, that meant shocking
bleached hair,paintedfingernails, and simulated drug injections. On record, it led to some of his most careless performances. One of these,
the 1974 albumSally Can'tDance, was also his most commercially successful, reaching the Top Ten, thus confirming both Reed's and the
audience's worstinstincts. As if toprove he could still be as uncompromising as anyone, he unleashed the double album Metal Machine
Music, a nonstopassault of electronic noise.Opinions remain divided as to whether it was an artistic statement, a contract quota-filler, ora
slap in the face to thepublic.
Later, Reed never behaved as outrageously (in public and in the studio) as he did in the mid-'70s, although there was plenty of excitement
inthedecades that followed. When he decided to play it relatively straight, sincere, and hard-nosed, he could produce affecting work in the
spirit ofhisbest vintage material (parts of Coney Island Baby and Street Hassle). At other points, he seemed not to be putting too
much effortintoany aspect of his songs ("Rock and Roll Heart"). With 1978's Take No Prisoners, he delivered one of the weirdest concert
albums of alltime, moreof a comedy monologue (which not too many people laughed hard at) than a musical document. Reed had always
been an enigma,but no onequestioned the serious intent of his work with the Velvet Underground. As a soloist, it was getting impossible to
tell when he wasserious, or whetherhe even wished to be taken seriously anymore.
At the end of the '70s, The Bells set the tone for most of his future work. Reed would settle down; he would play it straight; he
wouldaddressserious, adult concerns, including heterosexual romance, with sincerity. Not a bad idea, but though the albums that followed
were muchmoreconsistent in tone, they remained erratic in quality and, worse, could occasionally be quite boring. The recruitment of Robert
Quine as leadguitaristhelped, and The Blue Mask (1982) and New Sensations (1984) were fairly successful, although in retrospect
they didn'tdeserve the ravesthey received from some critics at the time. Quine, however, would also find Reed too difficult to work with for
an extendedperiod. New York(1989) heralded both a commercial and critical renaissance for Reed, and in truth it was his best work in
quite some time,although it didn't break anymajor stylistic ground. Reed worked best when faced with a challenge, which arrived when he
collaborated withformer partner John Cale in 1990 on asong cycle for the recently deceased Andy Warhol. In both its recorded and stage
incarnations, this wasthe most experimental work that Reed haddevised in quite some time.
Magic and Loss (1992) returned him to the more familiar straight rock territory of New York, again to critical raves. The re-formation of
theVelvetUnderground for a 1993 European live tour could not be considered an unqualified success, however. European audiences were
thrilled tosee thelegends in person, but critical reaction to the shows was mixed, and critical reaction to the live record was tepid. More
distressingly, oldconflicts rearedtheir head within the band once again, and the reunion ended before it had a chance to get to America. Cale
and Reed at thispoint seem determinednever to work with each other again (the death of Velvet Underground guitarist Sterling Morrison in
1995 seemed topermanently ice prospects of moreVU projects). In 1996, the surviving Velvet Underground members were inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hallof Fame, performing a newly penned songfor their fallen comrade, Morrison. Reed closed the '90s with an album that saw
him explorerelationships, 1996's Set the Twilight Reeling (manyspeculated that the album was biographical and focused on his union
with performanceartist Laurie Anderson), which didn't turn out to be one ofReed's more critically acclaimed releases. He also found time to
compose music for the Robert Wilson opera Timerocker, and in 1998, releasedthe "unplugged" album Perfect Night: Live in
London. The same year, Reed was the subject of a superb installment of the PBS AmericanMasters series that chronicled his entire
career (eventually released as a DVD,titled Rock and Roll Heart).
The year 2000 saw Reed's first release for Reprise Records, Ecstasy, a glorious return to raw and straightforward rock, a tour de force
thatmanyagreed was his finest work since New York. Another collaboration with Robert Wilson, POE-try, followed in 2001 and
continuedits worldwidestage run through the year. Including new music by Reed and words adapted from the macabre texts of Edgar Allan
Poe,POE-try led to Reed'shighly ambitious next album, The Raven. Animal Serenade, a double-disc set recorded at the
WilternTheater in Los Angeles during his 2003world tour, was issued in spring 2004. The live effort was Reed's tribute of sorts to his
celebrated RockN Roll Animal concert album, which wasreleased 30 years before. In 2007, Reed released Hudson River Wind
Meditations, a four-songexperimental sound collage that celebrated boththe best and worst aspects of Metal Machine Music. In 2011,
he joined forces with heavymetal legends Metallica to create Lulu, an album offresh studio material. Written by Reed, with James
Hetfield et al. providing input onarrangements and dynamics, Lulu blended Lou Reed'strademark monotone vocals with the power and
ferocity of Metallica's musicianship.However, Reed underwent a liver transplant at the Cleveland Clinicin April 2013, and although he
subsequently proclaimed his strength andintention to return to performing and songwriting, he died of end-stage liverdisease at his home on
Long Island in late October of that year.
« hide |
Similar Bands: Lou Reed and Metallica, The Velvet Underground, Lou Reed and John Cale, Tom Waits, John Cale Contributors: Jom, discovolante, Divaman, adr, leviathan82, TwigTW, rockandmetaljunkie, JesusV4, dudeinthepassinglane, Zmev, Robert Crumb, sebasthebarbar, Frippertronics, rockandmetaljunkie, TwigTW, insomniac15,
|
