Lou Reed: The best and worst albums in the ranking

Two albums lived The Velvet Underground Of the creative tensions between Lou Reed and John Cale. Then Reed presented the band before choosing: he or me? Cale went, the group played two LPs, which was strongly characterized by the new sole ruler. After Reed the Velvet Underground left Loaded (1970) before the publication of the album, he first withdrew, and worked in his father’s tax advice. The career could have ended here – but did not. Masterpieces followed, great nonsense and hidden peak.

Lou Reed: Starting point

Transformer (1972)

The very large albums of rock history succeed in getting into the game again and again. Transformer, co-produced by David Bowie, is such a plate. When she appeared in 1972, the criticism was partly allergic, the US rolling Stone wrote “Artsyfartsy Kind of Homo Stuff”. The audience showed much more openly: the album led Lou Reed to the charts for the first time, after the commercially unsuccessful years with The Velvet Underground and his flopped solo debut. Over the years, Transformer has been rediscovered again and again, for example in the theatrical release of the film Trainpotting, in which Perfect Day plays a special role.

The song is one of several perfect moments: Walk on the Wild Side, Satellite of Love – the classics can be found on Transformer. In addition, Reed with Vicious also invented industrial rock. To read on: Ezra Furman’s great treatise on the album as part of the book series 33 1/3.
★★★★★

Cities

Berlin (1973)

“One, two, three, gsuffa”-this is more of Munich than Berlin, but the main thing is that the title starts at the start with creepy beer tent recordings, the following piano ballad leads away from the glam, towards the barjazz piano, which in the same year also brought Tom Waits to the agenda. Reed uses Berlin as a backdrop for a tragic romance between addiction and self -abandonment, death and grief. The sound is opulent and shot at the same time, in pieces like Lady Day, the spirit of the “Cabaret” floats with, Men of Good Fortune is a perfect composition, the three long chunks at the end cost strength, at the end of the self -pitying SAD song, the protagonist rises again, the sad end becomes an hymn, the strings and flutes. Berlin is above all: a divine comedy.
★★★★★

New York (1989)

The 1980s had not been his decade, so it was Reed like Dylan, Bowie, Iggy Pop and many others. It was only at the end of the decade that he found his way back by portraying New York, at that time a city that had suffered no less than him. The topics are crowded, Halloween Parde commemorates the dirty blvd who died on AIDS. contrasts the enormous wealth and the extreme misery, between which there are often only two blocks in New York City. There is also space for romance: Romeo Had Juliette is a song about the possibilities of love in New York; The Hold Steady started her entire career based on this one song.
★★★★★

Crowd

Coney Island Baby (1975)

Remarkable: First of all, his career just started in the mid-1970s with lousy and lousy works almost in sand, then with Coney Island Baby he invented indie pop sound: gentle drums, dry bass, decorating guitars-Crazy Feeling or Charley’s Girl served The Wave Pictures, Belle & Sebastian and many others Blueprint. The title track at the end of the record is one of Reed’s best telly pieces: a story about the adolescence in the sign of the discovered, hidden, finally lived homosexuality – “Glory of Love, Just Might Come Through”.
★★★★★

Street Hassle (1987)

Imagine that you had laid the basis for a gigantic rock revolution with your old band – and are now facing the task of doing something new yourself. As punk, postpunk and new wave go through the ceiling, everyone suddenly refers to The Velvet Underground. And what does Lou Reed do? He gets Bruce Springsteen to his side, the Heartland rocker, who has been a superstar since Born to Run, but completely circulates. He can be heard as a spokesman in the final part of the three-part title-giving Suite Street Hassle, a chamber music outsider drama, for eleven minutes, incredibly good. It almost doesn’t matter that some of the other songs from Street Hassle stamp a little disoriented in front of them.
★★★★ ☆

The Blue Mask (1982)

A Cleane Platte: Lou Reed had come away from the intoxicants shortly before his 40th birthday, The Blue Mask appears almost immersed, the band plays excellently, bogged down in the title piece in the Hi-Fi rock, Reed Reed at the cold turkey song Waves of Fear was rare: So much emhase was rare. Underneath the Bottle also negotiates the addiction topic, the masculinity of pieces such as women or Heavenly Arms is caustic cynicism. Lou Reed tries to establish himself with this album in the mainstream rock of the early 1980s, but is out of place despite all efforts. This is exactly what makes The Blue Mask so interesting.
★★★★ ☆

Grief

Magic and Loss

According to Songs for Drella, Lou Reed stays with death, again he chooses his words very vigilant, over the time when Reed as a copywriter took every provocation: The poet now takes very seriously, which already show the additional titles of the songs: The Thesis, the situation, in the end a summation – Magic and Loss commuting between academy and poetry. The plate sounds lengthy in places, but has its moments. If someone dreams of a meeting of Leonard Cohen and the Dire Straits, it would sound like Magician. Dreamin ‘is an unexpected trip to the world of ambient music: Yoga with Lou Reed? Here you go. If you want more of it: Reeds New Age-Album Hudson River Wind Meditation (2007) is not so bad.
★★★★ ☆

Songs for Drella

When Andy Warhol died in February 1987, Lou Reed and John Cale come together again, their first collaboration has been working since the Velvet Underground effort White Light/White Heat and the exit Cales on pressure from Lou Reed. Here the two egomaniacs indulge in memories, writing and arranging 15 songs that still make every biopic unnecessary about Warhol: everything is in this music! Cales piano and Reed’s guitar are enough as instruments, only now and then magical keyboards, sometimes Cale plays his viola.

Touch the songs about Warhol’s childhood, Style It Takes is incredibly good about the founding phase of The Velvet Underground. In the end, Reed and Cale send a last greeting to your possible maker: Hello It’s Me is about the missed encounters in Warhol’s last years of life, but also of final injuries and open wounds: “You Hit Me Where It Hurt / I Didn’t Laugh / Your Diaries are not a Worthy epitaph.”
★★★★earch

Nonsense

Metal Machine Music / Sally Can’t Dance / Lulu / The Raven

Would Metal Machine Music, Lou Reeds almost career killer LP from 1975, a work by Tim Hecker or Nurse with wound, would we praise it into the sky? Who knows – in this context it remains: arbitrary noise. And yet: horny concept! For: ★★★

Much more annoying: the polished glam rock joy Sally Can’t Dance. Reed had a few stable songs, but they couldn’t be played like that. The LP was still a commercial success – despite the hideous cover. ★★★

And then there is Lulu, the thing with Metallica, which continues to sound ten years after the first shock, as if the metal stirred from the music LK of your trust teacher had set to music. ★

The Raven, Lou Reed’s homage to Edgar Allan Poe deserves a more differentiated look. The claim to be conceived as a work of art is difficult for the album on the shoulders, actors look, as well as guests like David Bowie, Ornte Coleman, Anhni or partner Laurie Anderson, who are supposed to increase the weight of the recordings with her contributions. From the first to the last tone, the fear remains that the work could collapse under this pressure. And yet the confused poetry revue remains entertaining in a strange way-even if Bowie and Reed have so much enjoyment to scare their song about the Hop Frog. If you imagine the two hopping in the studio, you will have even more pleasure in the number. ★★★

Lou Reed: Guest appearances

If you have Lou Reed with you as a guest singer, you have this voice that shapes the song – whether you want or not. Sometimes it goes wonderfully wrong, for example at this is your land, a song by the Simple Minds from the blockbuster album Street Fighting Years: Lou Reed’s short statement completely shoots the perfectionist pathos of the song. Great, on the other hand, his appearance as a narrator at Fistful of Love by I am A Bird Now, the breakthrough work by Antony & The Johnsons: Reed is an ideal line-up here because, as a life partner of the Transgender icon Rachel Humphreys, he had an iconic reputation in the LGBT scene of New York. Great its vocals for the Gorillaz-Track Some Kind of Nature by Plastic Beach; His last singing performance before his death was also a guest appearance in 2012: for the Canadian band Metric, together with Emily Haines, he sang the modern pop-meets indie rock song The Wanderlust. Lou Reeds Famous Last Words as a recording artist: “Wanderlust Will Carry Us On”.