Lou Reed part 2

On Lou Reed part 1 there was a lot of info and less music; we only managed to cover his first two solo albums. Today there'll be less talk and more music, because there's a lot of ground to cover. Let's begin!

But for all the career-rejuvenating kudos the British glam scene bestowed on Reed after the release of Transformer, he didn’t really fit in. Certainly, 1973’s Berlin underlined how different Reed’s notion of decadence was to that of his glittery contemporaries. It’s intriguing to compare Berlin’s contents with those of Bowie’s Aladdin Sane and Roxy Music’s For Your Pleasure, the other big follow-ups to breakthrough glam albums released in 1973. Bowie sang about wanking and sleazy sex on Sunset Strip, Roxy of inflatable sex dolls and ennui at chic parties: Reed offered up amphetamine addiction, prostitution, screaming children being removed into care, spousal abuse and suicide. Worse, he sang about all this stuff in a blank monotone, which appeared to be drained of all emotion, but in truth there was a lot of empathy, which the critics missed at the time. The effect was both extremely potent and incredibly disturbing. As attested by the horrified reviews, it was easy to miss that underneath lurked some of Reed’s most indelible melodies: Caroline Says II, How Do You Think It Feels?, Lady Day. Even today, with Berlin enshrined in the pantheon of classic albums, its second side remains a deeply uncomfortable listen.

In 2003 Rolling Stone, whose critics had originally panned the album, included it in their list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, and in 2008 a filmed live performance was well received. When asked if he felt vindicated, Reed said, "For what? I always liked Berlin."

The record opens with the title track, a moody and jazzy introduction, the best song Tom Waits never recorded:

Lady Day is inspired by Billie Holiday:

Caroline Says I & II are a diptych about domestic violence. Here's the first:

... And here's the even superior Caroline Says II:

Another brilliant track, How Do You Think It Feels, is about drug addiction:

The Kids are about adultery and prostitution and losing one's children to the social services.

Finally, The Bed is about suicide:

It's no wonder the album bombed in the US (It was a Top 10 hit in the UK): Transformer was triumphant, while Berlin was desolate. The British embraced desolate better, as would later be proven with the advent of Punk Rock.

After Berlin, Reed sounded chastened – or as close as Lou Reed ever got to chastened – on 1974’s Rock N Roll Animal, a live album backed by technically spectacular session men that compliantly sanded down the edges of Velvet Underground tracks until they could pass for something approaching mainstream 70s Rock. It's one of my favorite live albums ever; we've listened to Sweet Jane and Heroin the other day, let's listen to another of the VU classics, Rock 'n' Roll:

Reed’s view of Rock N Roll Animal was equivocal, but it became a big hit, which seemed to instil, or at least confirm in him, a belief that the public were stupid. (In fairness, if you had spent the late 60s in the Velvet Underground, redefining the very parameters of Rock music to widespread indifference and outright hostility, you might well have started formulating a similar theory. The result was Sally Can’t Dance, a more interesting album than its reputation as the nadir of Reed’s career suggests. On the one hand, Reed seems barely present, muttering or sneering in a camp whine somewhere amid the blaring brass sections and backing vocalists. But even at his most cynical, he couldn’t stop himself coming up with great songs: among them the nakedly autobiographical Kill Your Sons, the title track, and Billy, the latter an example of an oft-overlooked and rather moving strand of Reed’s mid-70s writing, in which he peers through his drugged-out fog and wonders aloud if he might not have been better off staying in Long Island after all.

Here's Sally Can’t Dance:

Here's Kill Your Sons:

... And here's Billy:

Sally Can’t Dance became the biggest US chart success of his career (a Top 10 hit), and he played along for a while, appearing in a TV ad for an album that he kept telling journalists was “a piece of shit”, before finally snapping, and insisting his label release the music he had been making at home while letting other people make Sally Can’t Dance. These days, Metal Machine Music’s hour of screaming feedback is routinely hailed as an early, confrontational classic of noise music. At the time Reed gave every impression of not really knowing what he had done, variously dismissing it as a joke, talking it up as serious art, calling it “a giant f*ck you” to his record label and latterday fans, and expressing regret that his record label marketed it badly and those fans might have bought it by mistake.

I must say I never heard this record even once. As a young man, when I would have been more open to it, it just didn't happen. Now that I'm older I avoid it on purpose. Reviews like Rolling Stone's, saying that the album is "as displeasing to experience as a night in a bus terminal", certainly didn't help change my mind. However, cudos to the man for throwing a conventional career to the wind.

His next album, 1976’s soft-hued, Doo-wop-influenced, wryly funny Coney Island Baby is routinely depicted as an abashed retreat. But it’s not just being perverse to suggest that it was the perfect follow-up: after all, in the Velvet Underground, Reed had included Femme Fatale and Sunday Morning on the same album as European Son and juxtaposed Here She Comes Now with the scourging din of I Heard Her Call My Name. Either way, the title track was among his greatest songs, another nostalgic lament contrasting the chaos of his speed-fuelled life with his suburban childhood, but this time with a philosophical conclusion: “Different people have peculiar tastes.”

Here's the track, one of my favorites, a love letter from a high school boy to his football coach. The song is dedicated to Rachel, his trans lover at the time:

Offered a financial lifeline by a new record label, he churlishly responded with 1976’s largely awful Rock and Roll Heart, an album every bit as cynical as Sally Can’t Dance, on which he dumbed his music down until there was barely anything there at all – “I’m banging on my drum, and I’m having lots of fun,” he sang over and over again for two and half minutes. And in perhaps the most unconvincing move of his career, attempted to present himself as a Bruce Springsteenish everyman: “I knows I ain’t smart,” offered the title track. When that didn’t work, he reverted to type with startling results. 1978’s Street Hassle was as dark and vituperative an album as Berlin, with the significant difference that it was released at the height of Punk – a chunk of the Rock world had by now come round to Reed’s way of thinking. Much as he publicly disdained the punks who clearly couldn’t have existed without his influence, on Dirt and the title track, he sounded re-energised.

Here's Dirt:

Here's Street Hassle, a three-movement poetic tone poem about life on the New York streets, one of the most audacious and deeply moving moments of Reed's solo career: A miniature Rock Opera, starting with just orchestral strings and gradually swelling into a full Rock band. A tale of lust, death, misogyny, and lies – and it includes a monologue spoken by an uncredited Bruce Springsteen.

... And here's Real Good Time Together:

Even Reed seemed to realise things had gone as far in that direction as they could. 1979’s The Bells variously tried disco, avant garde interludes and preposterously mannered vocals. The title track was not bad:

1980’s Growing Up in Public had rather self-consciously literary lyrics and The Power of Positive Drinking, a last, defiant f*ck-you-all gasp from the Reed who had spent the 70s claiming that the drugs that were killing him were actually vitamins.

The Blue Mask (1982) and its follow-up, Legendary Hearts (1983), were both great albums: in the company of inspired Jazz-influenced guitarist Robert Quine, Reed appeared to have hit on a new, mature style of songwriting that kept the edge and darkness without ever descending into self-parodic imitations of his old leather-clad image. We've already listened to the opening track of The Blue Mask, My House, the other day. Here's Underneath the Bottle:

The Day John Kennedy Died, about November 22, 1963, is a well-observed tale on the mundane reality of death.

Guitarist Robert Quine on Waves of Fear: "One thing that's crucial is that I listen to the lyrics," Quine said. "Waves of Fear, if it had been about making an egg cream, my solo would be different than a guy having a nervous breakdown." The track is four astounding minutes of psychosis: the band cuts loose while Reed shouts, "Crazy with sweat / Spittle on my jaw."

From Legendary Hearts, here's Make Up Mind:

Here's The Last Shot:

... And here's Betrayed:

That should have been that, but as ever, things weren’t quite that straightforward. He fell out with Quine and decided to make a bid for mainstream MTV fame: commercials were filmed for Honda scooters, songs were donated to the soundtracks of teen comedies. Reed, as usual, took a bid for mass acceptance as a signal to dumb things down. In fairness, both 1984’s New Sensations and 1986’s Mistrial have their moments, not least their title tracks, but they were a step down for Lou.

Here's New Sensations:

Here's one of the Poppiest songs he ever recorded, I Love You, Suzanne:

Here's Mistrial:

A real career renaissance followed, beginning with New York (1989). Shaken by the AIDS crisis, Reed wrote a set of uncharacteristically political songs rooted in storytelling detail. Robert Quine is gone, replaced by Mike Rathke's leaner sound, giving Reed more room to serve up vignettes like the inner-city love story Romeo Had Juliette and Halloween Parade, a Doo-wop-steeped, Walk on the Wild Side–like requiem for departed friends.

In 2006, Q placed New York at No. 26 in its list of "40 Best Albums of the '80s". In 1989, Rolling Stone ranked it the 19th best album of the 1980s. Mark Deming wrote in his allmusic.com review that "New York is a masterpiece of literate, adult Rock & Roll, and the finest album of Reed's solo career." In 2012, Slant Magazine listed it at No. 70 on its list of "Best Albums of the 1980s". The album won gold records in France, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Here's Romeo Had Juliette:

Here's a great song, Halloween Parade:

Dirty Blvd. contrasts the poor and the rich in New York City, and topped the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart for four weeks in early 1989.

Endless Cycle is another Reed song that examines the perpetuation of domestic violence:

There Is No Time is a rocker with a strong political message of activism:

Here's Beginning of a Great Adventure:

Another political song is Good Evening Mr. Waldheim:

Strawman is one of the angriest, and best, songs on the album, with lyrics about the inequalities of society: "Does anybody need yet another politician caught with his pants down and money sticking in his hole?"

The record's closing track is Dime Store Mystery:

Reed reunited with John Cale on the occasion of Warhol's death, resulting in a song cycle called Songs for Drella (1990) about their mentor that's less VU reunion than two fully formed artists bringing collective respect.

Opening track is Smalltown. The lyrics go:

When you're growing up in a small town

bad skin, bad eyes, gay and fatty

people look at you funny

when you're in a small town

My father worked in construction

it's not something for which I'm suited

oh, what is something for which you are suited

getting out of here

Style It Takes is sung by Cale. It's about the beginnings of Warhol's career and his meeting with Velvet Underground:

Slip Away (A Warning) is about Warhol coming to terms with what he created:

It Wasn't Me concerns the relationship between Warhol and Reed/Cale.

Hello It's Me is once again about the relationship between Warhol and Reed/Cale. This is much more tender, a reconciliation of sorts. The best song in the album.

Magic and Loss (1992), was another great album in a series of great albums. What's Good - The Thesis was Reed's second #1 hit (after Dirty Blvd.) on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, occupying the top spot for three weeks.

Sword of Damocles – Externally, is an elegiac folk rocker about cancer and radiation therapy from an LP that stares mortality squarely in the eye. Chilling and redemptive:

Harry's Circumcision - Reverie Gone Astray is another very interesting story song:

The closing number, Magic and Loss - The Summation, is my favorite of the album and one of my mantras, a piece that presents a part of myself. Other such songs, in case you're interested, are Simon & Garfunkel's I Am A Rock, Leonard Cohen's The Stranger Song, Bob Dylan's Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again, and the Beatles' Fixing A Hole and All You Need Is Love. This is Magic and Loss - The Summation:

Set the Twilight Reeling (1996), was a small step back. It did however include Egg Cream, a sweet serving of Brooklyn nostalgia with a classic Reed guitar hook:

Finish Line was Reed's tribute to Velvet Underground guitarist Sterling Morrison, who had died the previous year:

The title track, Set the Twilight Reeling, was recorded while Reed's relationship with artist Laurie Anderson blossomed. This song about rebirth begins as a ballad, then cranks up the amps in gratitude.

With Ecstasy (2000), Lou was back on form. Here's the title track:

Rock Minuet is a genuinely shocking narrative about queer self-loathing and murderous rage that resonates in the wake of last year's mass
shooting in Orlando.

The centerpiece of the album is this the eighteen-minute track Like a Possum, about the limits of his animal urges: "Just another useless night in bed," Reed sings. Meanwhile, the guitars grind away at his emotions until they're pureed.

The Raven is a concept album released in 2003, recounting the short stories and poems of Edgar Allan Poe through word and song, and was based on his 2000 opera cowritten with Robert Wilson, POEtry. It also features new and very different versions of The Bed and Perfect Day, two of the best-known songs in Reed's catalog, and the noise music song Fire Music. In addition to Reed, the album features a number of guest vocalists including Laurie Anderson, David Bowie, Antony Hegarty, Steve Buscemi and Willem Dafoe. The producer, Hal Willner, had previously overseen the Poe tribute album Closed on Account of Rabies. It is the final solo Rock album by Reed, as his final overall solo album consisted entirely of meditational New Age music, and his final Rock album was a collaboration with Metallica.

The album featured a striking take on the Transformer classic, Perfect Day, sung by avant-
crooner Antony, one of his many inheritors.

Here is The Raven:

... And here is Who Am I? (Tripitena's Song):

His last album, Lulu (2011), a collaboration with Metallica was derided by many. But Bowie reportedly called it Reed's "greatest work." Time will tell; for the hymn-like Junior Dad alone, it deserves a second look.

There is also The View, which came out as a single, the music video of which was directed by Darren Aronofsky:

In May 2013, Reed underwent a liver transplant at the Cleveland Clinic. Afterwards, on his website, he wrote of feeling "bigger and stronger" than ever, but on October 27, 2013, he died from liver disease at his home in Southampton, New York, at the age of 71.

David Byrne, Laurie Anderson, Patti Smith, David Bowie, Morrissey, Iggy Pop, Courtney Love, Lenny Kravitz, Miley Cyrus, Samuel L. Jackson, Kanye West, Ricky Gervais, Ryan Adams, Elijah Wood, Howard Stern and many others paid tribute to Reed. Pearl Jam dedicated their song Man of the Hour to Reed at their show in Baltimore and then played I'm Waiting for the Man. On the day of his death, the Killers dedicated their rendition of Pale Blue Eyes to Reed at the Life Is Beautiful festival in Las Vegas. Phish opened their show in Hartford with Rock & Roll, after which Trey Anastasio asked the audience for a moment of silence for one of the "greatest artists to ever live".

We close with a song by The Killers from 2007 called Tranquilize, in which Lou collaborated.