Review Summary: and the coloured girls still go doo doo-doo doo-doo doo doo-doo, dooooooooo..
If there are two people on this forlorn earth adept enough to dole out token relationship advice; they are probably Oprah and Lou Reed, and with "Ecstasy", the latter makes his addled foray into both ill-fated inferior marriage counselling and his own complacent pseudo-closure. This album has been deemed by the few people I’ve known who took the time to sift through "Ecstasy"’s mess as indulgent, bloated, redundant and essentially a retrograde of Reed’s career’s less-than-finer instances. They are all absolutely right and yet I love this album like no other piece of Reed’s decrepit and weary body of work. Maybe it’s my penchant of plucking completely inglorious records out of obscurity in a meek attempt at mustering up some semblance of a personality. Or maybe I’m just a sucker for sonic punishment which Reed’s albums can deliver with much more bluster than a noise band howling in a blender. Either way, where all else see indulgence and redundancy, I see decadence and caustic nostalgia. Writing this review is also swiftly growing tiresome, so I’ll try and be brief. I don’t listen to this album for the longing glimpses of my own failed romances, or the beautiful women who were daft enough to look my way some days, or for Reed’s to-and-fro swinging between redolent eloquence and vulgar ramblings (which the album is brimming with). It isn’t the quite intricate guitar work which this album has plenty of as well. "Ecstasy" is the uttermost guilty musical pleasure of mine. So far, this is hardly a review, so on that note; the album is guitar-driven, with enough derivative melodies and tediously elongated songs to cause any one to turn their nose up in the air and opt out for "Metal Machine Music" instead. It’s ominously poppy in a few places, and humorously glowering in others, and filled with Reed’s patented poetry, which at this point sounds like a stagnant version of Charles Bukowski choking on a lapsed Catholic priest. Much like the music, it’s slender and supple in some places, and downright idiotic in others and in the song "Rock Minuet" boasts with some of my most treasured Reed lines:
School was a waste, he was meant for the street
But school was the only way, the army could be beat
The two whores sucked his nipples 'til he came on their feet
As they danced to the Rock Minuet.
Ultimately, I won’t blame anyone for their distaste with this album. It is messy and frustrating and much more effete than many other musicians can or would ever choose to afford to be. But it is also bawdy and sordid and grungy and beautifully sleazy, and as far as guilty pleasures go; I can think of countless people worse off. This album has no review on this site, and probably rightfully so, but I implore you to let me evince my utmost bias in penning this swill of a critique. I love this record and I can only hope that someone will sometime sit down and devote eighty acridly long minutes to take "Ecstasy" in. Most will crawl away from that experience with bleeding ears and a worn patience. And that’s fine with me as well. The allure of this album for me is in the weariness and doleful yen that "Ecstasy" is laced with. So forgive me my gratuitous discourse and I won’t bother you again.
