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Lou Reed

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In a private email, Bri informs me of his renewed enthusiasm for the works of Lou Reed. It is his firm belief that Magic & Loss is Lou’s best, most coherent album. I can’t comment because I’m not really a fan but Bri would appreciate input and discussion from his old AW chums

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  2. I think Bri has a point. Coincidentally, I listened to Magic and Loss recently, for the first time in many years. It’s a poignant and touching album, and provoked an emotional reaction in me that I don’t associate or expect from Lou Reed. Possibly the subject matter caught me on the downswing, but even so…

  3. There’s gold in the most unlikely places in Reeds work. I’ve been listening to The Bells, which sold bugger all but is pretty good
    Magic and Loss has aged very well, it’s not exactly a party record but then not much of his work is…

  4. I’m enjoying the forthcoming Lou Reed tribute album, which demonstrates why he was a Brill building songwriter for others ahead of the VU and beyond, as he has both an innate grasp of melody and a sentimental formulaicism. However much he tried to bludgeon it out his band and solo work, enough remains to guarantee him as much a place as a writer as he gained as a performer.

  5. For me, 1989’s New York – oddly playing as I opened this thread and now write – is his far and away his best closely followed by Berlin. The live Rock and Roll Animal is also pretty damn good.

    • Yep I’m with you on Songs For Drella. I know it was John Cale, not Lou, singing on Style It Takes, but I particularly love that song.

      And also, as Jaygee says, New York. Some crackers on there – Romeo Had Juliette, The Last Great American Whale, Halloween Parade to name but three. It’s the Lou Reed era I go back to when I have an itch that needs scratching.

  6. Another vote for New York, and Songs for Drella.

    The Blue Mask is a great, and under-appreciated, mid-period gem.

    Turns out I like Lou sober.

    Berlin is wonderful but, like M+L, I can’t imagine listening to it for pleasure.

  7. Magic and Loss is a very worthy album but not one I put on. Berlin may be be bleak and depressing but it is also stunning. An absolute triumph. So I endure the misery to absorb the mastery.

  8. New York is the only Lou Reed album I regularly play, but Magic and Loss ain’t half bad either.

    How is Bri in the land of snowy wastes? He was never the same after he did that stint as Ray X.

    • Seems to be doing fine, acting in films (a cameo as Bruce Springsteen), wife in good fettle, and apart from dodgy knees his life is good. He bitterly resents the RayX accusation – “Who do you think I am, The Baron?”

    • Never much snow or waste on Vancouver Island!

      Magic and Loss is a masterpiece, part of a run of 3 with New York and Songs for Drella (with John Cale). I also like the ones that came after Ecstasy and Set the Twilight Reeling. For me his best period as a solo artist

  9. I think Transformer sets the bar it’s such a great album which I think still sounds mighty fine. Much as I love New York and other tracks this is Lou’s finest album.

  10. I have had an ongoing conversation about Lou Reed for 30 years or so with my one remaining schoolfriend. He had a thesis that the VU are the most influential band in the 21st century. I kind of agree but influential doesn’t mean good necessarily.

    I regularly return to him ( once a year?) – especially New York and sometimes Magic and Loss. I listened to Mistrial a fair bit ( No Money Down was a top 40 hit in 1986 where I live). I had Songs for Drella and New Sensations. I am kind of fascinated and I read quite a lot of interviews.

    And sometimes my dislike for his music is almost visceral. It’s entirely subjective and I think he is in many ways extremely successful at delimiting his art. My issue is that he is self-congratulatory in that what he thinks of as insights are often remarkably mundane. The personal song-writing is vastly unsuccessful because I’m not interested in him at all and his lyrics leave no room for moving from the personal to the universal. “Jealousy” off New Sensations is an example of this problem – to me there is nothing going on in this song at all.

    Melodically of course he is limited and he has a style of singing which I have no issue with really. But because my singers are people like Sam Cooke, McCartney, Dion ( what a singer) I have trouble enjoying his singing beyond a song or two though I love his vocal attitude in I Love You Suzanne and WOTWS of course.

    I think the issue is that there is mean-spiritedness in him, a defensiveness, a hostility that infects his work for me. The best ( or worst example) is Busload of Faith off New York which is certainly successful at communicating an attitude. But that is all it does and its not enough. For a serious artist to have spent time in a studio working on a song with a chorus that ‘it take a busload of faith to get by’ tells you everything you need about the failure of ‘rock’ to be anything other than rhythm music for dancing, parties, love-making. Of course, I don’t really think that but that is the problem for me with Lou Reed: he makes everything in the genre seem inane and it can’t be rescued by three chords and a terrific guitar sound. Have a listen to Busload – even the solo at the end matches the lack of genuine intelligence that mars Reed’s work 90% of the time.

    • Mistrial could be his worst album, New Sensations is slightly better (I love the title track), one bizarre thing was seeing him play (I think) I Love You, Suzanne live and he went into this incredible falsetto at the end. Quite remarkable. He can be a great singer though, check out Pale Blue Eyes for one. I like Busload of Faith actually, but New York is my favourite solo album. Remarkably the Velvets actually had 5 singers, Lou, Cale, Nico, Doug Yule and Mo Tucker (couple of times)

  11. Magic and Loss is terrific record., the band and arrangements pulled right back. The opening track’s long list of incongruous combinations (bacon and ice cream etc) always hits when he reveals he’s actually talking about the shock of ‘cancer in April’. Ecstasy is a particularly good late period album too – many startlingly good stand out tracks plus one very very long one.

    • Ha. I concur. Another very long track is Junior Dad on the (otherwise terrible) Metallica collaboration, it’s a (very) late period masterpiece.

  12. Tricky business, inventories… puts one in a vulnerable place.
    Only 23 have made the grade thus far, and a considerable number of CDs on my shelf, many beloved on this forum, might have less time on it than they think.
    Step forward: Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, and, yes, Lou Reed.

    When I say Lou Reed, I mean the Velvet Underground. I have no Lou Reed.

    My problem is twofold.
    1. I don’t like him (see also: Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Roger Daltrey). Actually, I REALLY don’t like him.
    2. The baggage. Can anyone listen to the Nico LP without the knowledge of its’ ‘importance’? I know I can’t. The post-60s narrative (I wouldn’t have a problem if it was a 60s narrative) is engrained everywhere, and only one of their albums seems to come without it… the third one.
    So I’m v. close to gathering all the others up and chazzering them.

    That would mean I will have just one Joni Mitchell CD (the debut, more Joni than ‘JONI’) and one Velvet Underground CD, which will make more room for acts I consider to be of far more worth and far, far, far more entertainment value… rock ‘n’ roll, soul, ska, etc… and, boy, does that sound like a weight off my shoulders!

    Yep, I’ve convinced myself, it’s a chazzer-job, they’re going.

    (Sorry, just thinking out loud)

    • This reminds me of those threads where someone has been asked to arrange the music at a wedding party and wants suggestions and the first half dozen responses are: “Well of course Watcher of the Skies is a guaranteed dancefloor banger”

  14. I prefer pre-80s Lou even though it’s hit and miss. He sounds better in that mellow style. Coney Island Baby, the song, has that laid-back feel. Later in his career he gets more strident and he’s got something important to tell us. That’s less appealing. Things like Egg Cream are good though, where he’s not trying too hard. Less earnest. Coney Island Baby is a favourite. Odd lyrics but full of feeling. More affecting than later Lou. Sobriety isn’t always the best thing for an artist as opposed to a person. The world is a funny place, somewhere like a circus or a sewer. Great line. It’s a bit like a late VU song which is high praise.

  15. So many great records.

    80% of what the Velvets did, plus all the great live recordings
    Transformer
    Berlin
    Street Hassle
    Coney Island Baby (echo all the love for the title track, but Charley’s Girl is also great)
    The Blue Mask

    I even have a soft spot for Ecstacy, which is obviously not a great record, but I really enjoy Modern Dance (the delivery of “what a dream, Van Gogh museum” is a favourite Lou moment), Turning Time Around, Paranoia Key of E and Like A Possum.

    My favourite recent Lou Reed album? Longwave by Bonny Doon.

  16. There’s a great show from 1984 Capitol Theatre from the time of The New Sensation album. He plays with a great band featuring Robert Quine doing hiss special thing. Reed seems on good form, drolly joking around. Even the music is quite jaunty. I like this period.

    The whole show is on yt BTW.

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