On The Death Of Lou Reed

There is probably no other artist as singularly frustrating as Lou Reed.

He is a personal hero, yet someone I would never want to meet. He let his past and his ego cloud what could have been a career that rivaled the output of David Bowie at the least, Bob Dylan at the most. For whatever reason, he chose a path that purposely alienated any possibility of that happening while continuing to boast about his talent, even in the face of this indifference.

And now, goddamnit, the last piece of work he’ll be remembered for is that godawful collaboration with Metallica, Lulu.

Somehow, ain’t that just perfect?

But let’s be honest, you give Lou Reed a wide berth for a very good reason. There are the four Velvet Underground records released between 1967 and 1970 which are some of the most vital albums in rock history. They of such enormous importance that even a collection of outtakes and leftovers recorded in 1968 is practically as good as the official titles.

So if you’re keeping score, that’s a batting average on par with The Beatles and better than the Rolling Stones, making Lou Reed’s post-Velvets output akin to John Lennon’s own uncompromising catalog, only three decades more wide.

It’s not that Reed’s solo records were anything to sneeze at; there are a few oddly placed titles that are required listening, but there are a lot more that will get you closer to believing that his creative apex ended the moment he moved back into his parent’s house and put his electric guitar away in the closet for a few months. After that, it’s a landmine of outbursts, questionable creative directions and a bunch of just plain stubborn decisions that did nothing else but to remind everyone that the buck stops with Lou Reed and him alone.

One of the most read posts on this blog are the ones about Lou Reed. The review for his 1979 album TheBells in particular solicits a lot of page views and a few passionate reactions to the less-than-positive review.

Reading it now, I was taken by how vicious (ha!) I was to an album that I accurately placed at “two-stars,” enough that I can completely understand why fans of Lou would actively log in to the comment section and call me an asshole for it. It’s unnecessarily bitchy.

And then I gave Sally Can't Dance, Reed’s lazy commercial follow-up to Transformer a whopping “three-star” review, which should have also garnered a large amount of comments (but didn’t) on the sheer weight that this was way too generous of a record featuring the likes of “Animal Language.” Reed even noticed the irony at how Sally-the effort in which he participated the least-became his highest charting effort ever.  I like it because at least half of the tracks rule and it shows that had Reed been willing to play ball just a little bit like a good roster boy, he could have had a string of gold records.

But no. He follows it up with Metal Machine Music. Then he changes his mind and works for that old queen Clive Davis and gives him an abysmal commercial offering, Rock ‘N Roll Heart. I mean, the guy was bi-polar in the manner in which he addressed his celebrity and music.

There were moments that simply transcended, perhaps never fully realized until he followed a disciple into the studio for Transformer. Reed would more than likely disagree, but with Bowie’s glam window dressings, Reed let the line between his contemporaries and his neglected old band in the Velvets, finally receive the commercial acknowledgement he deserved, only to resent the attention nearly as quickly as he experienced it.

It was with this album I first arrived, immediately followed by Rock & Roll Animal­ and the aforementioned Sally Can’t Dance.

Transformer filled the B-side of a Maxell C-90 XL-II cassette with Sex Pistols’ Never Mind The Bullocks on the A. These were probably the two worst records that you could probably give a Freshman in high school, but a friend of mine figured I needed them, and he was right. With these two records, the blueprint of my high school soundtrack was began a new musical wing of exciting possibilities.

Rock & Roll Animal had me thinking that Reed was infallible. It’s as unlikely a live album that you’ll ever heard, putting Reed at the head of the class in the arenas, filling out his catalog with hard rock licks and a sense of entitlement. When he blurts out “You can all go take a fucking walk!” during the extended version of “Heroin,” it’s like he’s got the last word on all those “Jim Jims in this town,” finally getting the popularity he deserved.

When things got grim (again) during the 80’s, I received comfort from Coney Island Baby. There was a club in Iowa City that unexplainably had this album on their cd jukebox, and it became a perfect, late-night selection.  There’s nothing like hearing Lou admit “I want to play football for the coach” while under the influence of too much liquor, and probably the only time you can hear such a line with a straight/shitty face.

Another resurgence in the late 80’s came for New York, and for a while it maintained Reed until Magic and Loss in ’92. I remember forgetting about how bad Reed could be, blindly following his output until the one-two punch of disappointment of the Velvet’s reunion and his solo effort, Set The Twilight Reeling.

From that point on, I barely paid attention, and when I did, it was for all the wrong reasons.

The news of his liver transplant came as a shock earlier this year, but having seen Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead pull through something similar, it sounded like the surgery might be promising. It wasn’t too long ago when Reed promised that everything was going great and that he was going to be back “stronger than ever.”

It now sounds like it was only the bravado talking.

I didn’t take the news well. It’s been on my mind all day, in addition to all of the other mundane dramas of our family’s afternoon. I went out to mow the lawn, creating a Lou Reed playlist beforehand, but by the time I got the mower started, I just listened to the noise of the engine.

It was my own version of Metal Machine Music.

Lou Reed - The Blue Mask

I wouldn’t say that my group of friends in high school was excited about the prospect of a new Lou Reed album, but the praise that The Blue Mask received in Rolling Stone magazine certainly got our attention. It wasn’t every day where the mag gave an album 5 stars.

That high praise got a friend of mine to march down to the record store in the mall and fork over the money for Lou’s comeback album.

The reality was that this “comeback” merely meant the artist fulfilled his contract with Arista and found himself back at the same label that supposedly was so bad that he unleashed Metal Machine Music on them. The Blue Mask was Reeds first record for RCA in a long time, and it actually sounded like he may have offered them something of worth. Whether or not The Blue Mask is truly the “return to form” that so many Reedophiles consider it as is another matter entirely, but let me get back to my friend’s immediate reaction to it shortly after opening up the shrink wrap.

Keep in mind that he’s probably around 18 at the time-a senior in high school-and I’m a lowly freshman at the sheltered age of 15.

Less than a week after buying it, my friend calls with an update and is obviously very critical of this record. He begins making whining noises, mewling on about how Reed is turning into a sad, old baby-boomer who’s still hung up on Camelot and pretending to go straight, as the title to one song (“Average Guy”) suggests.

My friend offers me the copy for The Blue Mask for $2, a huge discount from what he originally paid for it not less than seven days prior. He was that insistent on getting rid of the record and I was one that simply could not pass up such a bargain.

There must have been something that those critics in Rolling Stone knew that my friend simply didn’t.

It was the first of many lapses in judgment regarding the magazine’s critical perspective.

Admittedly, for years I coddled this record, repeating the misconception that The Blue Mask was indeed worthy of Reed’s most undisputed work. I understand now-after years of follow-up spins and considerations-that most of my own opinion is tainted by the low, re-purchase price I was provided, and the fact that the $2 spent on The Blue Mask purchased two incredibly good Lou Reed songs, “The Gun” and the title track, “The Blue Mask.”

You should go to ITunes or some other digital outlet and fork over the two bones that it takes to acquire those awesome entries.

You can forget about the rest of The Blue Mask and you can ignore any claims to the contrary that his 1982 release is anything but another half-assed creative statement.

Sure, Reed picks up his guitar with much gusto and he sounds very inspired at certain points, but when you compare “Coming of Age Lou” against “Coming of Middle Age Lou” you suddenly begin to notice a stunning revelation: Even aging cultural icons can get unwittingly boring as the year’s progress.

The band he works with on The Blue Mask is riddled with contradiction. It’s the first album that features bassist Fernando Saunders, who later sticks around for every single shitass Lou Reed record released since then. Notice how I didn’t say, “every single Lou Reed record released since then,” just the shitty ones.

Saunders offers up incredible proficient readings through an incredibly irritating fretless bass, that farts, burps, and gloats through Reed’s placid take on settling down. Guitarist Robert Quine also makes an appearance here, which is admittedly the only thing that saves The Blue Mask from another release that’s truly worthy of anger and ridicule. His playing is near brilliant in some places, and the amount of respect he shows Reed with his restraint, speaks vastly about his character.  Some of the tones that Quine unleashes-particularly on the title track-are things of wonder. Aside from Sterling Morrison, this remains Reed’s most vital guitarist, and his under usage of Quine remains one of Lou’s most unforgiveable offensive. But he’s all over this record, saving The Blue Mask from the trash heap.

Lyrically, Reed offers such musings as “I love women, I think they’re great” (“Women”), he lazily details the plight of alcoholism with such exclamations as “Oooh wee! Son of a B!”(“Underneath The Bottle”) and strangely offers to put his hat into the presidential ring while foggily remembering the assassination of President Kennedy (“The Day John Kennedy Died”), providing the historically inaccurate claim that our 35^th president was shot in the face.

The real tragedy with The Blue Mask is how Lou’s primary muse-his (then) wife/manager, Sylvia-inspires some of the most pedestrian lyrics of his career. He waxes on how he’d like to offer a choir of castrati before making love to her and apologizes for jerking off to girlie mags. At one point, Reed even gives his own fag-era a hetero whitewash, with “Heavenly Arms.” As the last word on the record, Reed declares, “Only a woman can love a man,” which is surprising coming from a guy who spent a good amount of words on the subject when he was younger, and with a lot more tolerant eye.

For the chorus, he sings her name-full on-over and over.

Make no mistake, The Blue Mask isn’t worthy of the retrospective Mick Rock cover because it shares nothing in common with that era. This is “average guy” Lou, and it goes without saying that the more vanilla he becomes, the blander his work ends up.

The Blue Mask marks the end of a pretty abysmal late 70’s career slide, but pointing yourself in the right direction is not the same as actually accelerating out of the rut. There is evidence that the engine is still capable of speed, but you’d be surprised at the number of times you catch Reed just riding the breaks.

Lou Reed and Metallica - Lulu

The pairing is so unusual that one is inclined to immediately react with “Wha?” followed by a gut-checked “It’s gonna suck.”

And after listening to Lulu, I would encourage everyone to listen to their impulse reaction.

I’m curious to hear the responses of people who are admitted fans of this record, true loyalists who find some redeeming value to this project, beyond the canned responses that I’ve been hearing all along. Sure, the making of Lulu may have indeed been a liberating experience for the members of Metallica, but how liberating is it for fans of either artist who already view each new release with a distrusting eye?

Because ultimately, Lulu will have to be defended by them and they should be prepared for a long, arduous journey.

The entire idea of matching Lou Reed with Metallica doesn't make sense. The band is not known for rubbing shoulders with the avant-garde while Reed isn't exactly known for running around in thrash circles.

To be polite, the two sound as uncomfortable together on tape as they do in your mind.

At one point during “Pumping Blood,” the band repeats a monotonous guitar figure while Reed barks out the song title, occasionally breaking out into what appear to be verses. One example during the song finds Lou spitting “Waggle my ass like a dog prostitute coagulating heart…Pumping blood...C’mon James!”

He’s encouraging Hetfield because the song-as does most of the album-plods along like a lazy rehearsal. No interesting riffs arrive and Lars Ulrich tentatively drums the whole mess into nothing. There’s huge holes in some of his parts suggesting that he could have been replaced by Mo Tucker and Lulu would have least sounded rhythmically appealing.

There are no solos for Kirk Hammett in Lulu and I could hear no evidence that he wanted to get his feet wet with any real weirdness to break up the endless parade of jug-jug-jugs and big chord bridges. At some points, and I don’t know if it’s James or Kirk playing, you can hear someone pick up an acoustic guitar and start playing like they have no idea what they’re supposed to be doing.

And if you turn the volume up as loud as you can on Lulu, you may be able to hear the voice of bassist Robert Trujillo muttering under his breath “What the fuck am I doing here? I wonder if I can get my gig with Suicidal Tendencies back?”

There’s something going on with Reed’s mouth too, and you can hear it throughout the record. I mean, if you’re intending for Lulu to be powerful, provocative, right?! He sounds like an old man with a lazy drawl. Hard consonants are a challenge for Lou and when he musters enough strength to scream, it sounds as though he’s merely shaking free a bunch of mucus in the back of his throat. “I want so much to hurtcha!” he threatens on “Frustration” with about as much menace as a grandpa trying to figure out how to work the remote.

There are moments where you can audibly hear Lou breathing through his nose, further suggesting the grandpa factor.

But the ground zero of shittyness is the lyrics that Reed attempts to spew out. He’s prominent in the mix, giving listeners a good glimpse of his parade of crap. There are moments when you’re jaw will drop in shock (“You’re more man than I/To be dead to have no feeling/To be dry and spermless/Like a girl/Like a girl!”). There are moments when your mouth will just be agape while your head shakes in disbelief (“The taste of your vulva…and everything on it!”). And there are moments where you’ll just blurt out in laughter (“The female dog don’t care what you got/As long as you can raise that little doggie face/To a cold-hearted pussy”).

It sounds like an improvisational affair, a project initiated on a whim while becoming a permanent artifact will be remembered as nothing more than a “What the fuck?!” moment. Generations will ponder it, and you may even find a few weirdoes in the corner that will defend this moment.

Ignore them. There’s nothing remotely redeeming here.

Lulu is something that may have indeed been something therapeutic for those involved, and it may even hold a special place in their heart. But that doesn’t mean it should have been offered a legitimate release date. It’s something that should have left to the vaults, a curio whose legend grows from its own silence.

Unfortunately, it’s here. It’s real. And it’s awful.



This review originally appeared in Glorious Noise.

Metallica and Lou Reed Pretend To Make An Album Together

Metallica and Lou Reed.

Even on paper, this doesn’t sound good.

And while Rolling Stone’s David Fricke seems to think this is some match made in heaven, I’m of the opinion that David Fricke gets a little too worked up about things that may need to be viewed after first taking a deep breath.

This is one of those things.

I may be paraphrasing here, but I could have swore that he compared this to a Master Of Puppets meets Berlin or something equally as dumb or completely off-based. There is no way that it will be anywhere near Puppets or Berlin because 1.) Cliff is dead and 2.) Lou can’t remember the chord progression to “Lady Day.”

The collaboration is as simple as two artists without the hassle of a record contract, dicking around together because they can afford to.

For Reed, it’s probably a matter of his ego getting stroked by an immensely popular band who haven’t done anything creatively relevant for over twenty years. Of course, Lou is too old to understand this, but then again, Reed hasn’t been creatively relevant for over twenty years either, but nobody has got balls big enough to advise him of this.

And nobody will have the balls big enough to advise him that this project is ridiculous either. But mark my words, someone at Q Prime will politely tell the band that this pairing is not in line with the inroads they made to re-secure their fan base with Death Magnetic.

That album was more of a stop the bleeding effort, a public relations image builder than it was an actual creative re-birth. Do you really believe the band looked forward to revisiting the old thrash formula after spending well over a decade trying to flee from it?

And after re-establishing their popularity and attempting to regain some of the fans who got tired of their shenanigans, do you think Cliff Burnstein is going to let them release a full-length collaboration with Lou Reed? A record that’s based on the writings of German author Frank Wedekind?

No chance.

At best, this ends up on an overly-hyped Lou Reed album, in much the same way that all the eggheads creamed themselves over The Raven while most Reed fans declared that album to be a piece of shit.

If any of this does manage to end up on a Metallica disc, it will be done in a single song offering, not a full-length.

And it will be just as well-received as Reed’s other hard rock collaboration, Kiss’ The Elder.

Lou Zoom

Wow. I don't know what to make of this.
Not so much the idea of an IPhone application that helps old people, but that Lou Reed is marketing it and in some ways leading people to believe that he developed it.
Yes, it's Lou saturated in color to hide his wrinkles promoting an application that zooms your IPhone contacts.
Nothing wrong with that...but Lou Reed?
It's neither funny nor all that motivating; do they really think that Lou in oversized glasses and poking a $300 phone with a Japanese Sai is good marketing?
And the name Lou Zoom? Reeks of his ego more than a memorable name for an app that may indeed have a market.

Lou Reed - Sally Can't Dance

Lou Reed publicly voiced his displeasure of Sally Can’t Dance, but then again, Lou Reed is an asshole, so it’s best to taper his comments with a dose of reality. As a matter of fact, Lou Reed as an asshole is found throughout Sally Can’t Dance so maybe his criticism of it was part of the Lou Circa ’74 character.
His criticism of the album is one of the reasons I love it: the production. It’s slick, polished, and everything glistens. That’s not to suggest there aren’t some dirty moments throughout the album’s brief 8 song cycle, there’s a lot of it, actually, both figuratively and musically. But every instrument is distinguishable and there are moments where Lou’s voice-a relatively limited and weak instrument-is processed with studio gimmicks that it sounds awesome.
“Kill Your Sons,” a song about Lou’s electroshock therapy treatments as a teen, remains as one of his fiercest songs ever.
“NY Stars” finds Reed dismissing his hometown imitators with a deadpanned “Help the New York stars.” That same, intentional deadpan is used throughout Sally Can’t Dance (the “Alimony” bit in “Ennui,” the “then war broke out…a he had to go” line in “Billy”) and it never tires.
Upbeat Lou even stops by for a laugh or two, with mixed results. The descriptive title track that details where Sally “used to ball folk singers” (a line that I like to use on my wife when we visit her hometown on the holidays. You know, we’ll pass a grain elevator and I’ll ask her if “that’s where you used to ball folk singers?”).
It falls flat on the downright awful “Animal Language,” a song so embarrassing that I’ll let it play through and dramatically sing the lyrics like a Vegas crooner. You really haven’t lived until you’ve heard me belt out “they took the dude’s sweat and shot it up between the two” like Robert Goulet.
Sally Can’t Dance became Lou’s highest charting album, leading him to exclaim that if he relinquished total control on his albums to someone else that he would surely find himself with a number 1 record. Given the artist’s cantankerous nature, noncommercial subject matters and penchant for subversive behavior, it seems highly unlikely that this could really happen. But Sally Can’t Dance at least promotes how Lou should have entertained the idea of letting someone man the controls behind the boards a little more frequently.

Lou Reed - Mistrial

I bought Mistrial the first week it was released on the notion that it was a Lou Reed record, and weren't all Lou Reed records supposed to be, at the very least, listenable. Mistrial is far from listenable, but it is certainly criminal.

For some reason, Reed seems to embrace nearly everything that is wrong about the 80's: from the flaccid drum beats to the woefully gated and sterile production, to Reed's own attempt at rapping ("The Original Wrapper"), it is the first glimpse of Lou sounding his age and becoming just as embarassing as a dad picking up their kid at middle school in a mini-van with Sheena Easton's "Sugar Walls" blaring out of the windows.

Strangely, RCA record decided that Mistrial was commerically viable enough to pump enough money into it for not one, but two piece of shit videos, with the second one being produced by Godley and Creme, which means nothing to you kids now, but back then, we all thought any video directed by Godley and Creme was automatically good, just like we thought Lou Reed albums were.

Lou Reed - The Bells

For some strange reason, I went through a heavy Lou Reed phase my first year of high school. It started after rummaging through a few of my uncle’s albums that were left behind at my Grandparent’s house and there, in between a copy of Frank Zappa’s Weasels Ripped My Flesh and The Who’s Meaty Beaty Big & Bouncy was a copy of The Best of Lou Reed.
Later on, that same Uncle left a cassette copy of Lou Reed’s Sally Can’t Dance in his car, a Renault Le Car if you remember those, and he lent me the keys so I could sit inside and listen to it on the car stereo. Don’t ask, I was young, and it was cooler to listen to it in his car rather than bring the tape in and listen to it on my own stereo.
I liked both albums, but I absolutely loved Reed’s Transformer album after a friend put it on the back of a Maxell cassette, which housed Never Mind The Bullocks on the other side. I don’t need to tell you that I wore that cassette out as the pair of albums proved to be hugely influential and were played incessantly.
And while the Pistols’ catalog pretty much dropped off after Bullocks, there was plenty to discover with Reed and with his former band, The Velvet Underground. I got The Blue Mask from a friend who bought it on a whim, hated it, and sold it to me for a buck. I bought the 8-Track….yes you heard right…of Sally Can’t Dance for a quarter at a pawn shop. It was brand new and I made a cassette copy of the 8-Track (minus the program changes) which made the fidelity pretty awful. I also found a cassette copy of Lou Reed’s The Bells at a different pawn shop for a buck and immediately bought it with no idea as to what I was buying.
Because, and you need to know this about Lou Reed, one can never be too careful when examining his solo work. I’ll post a review, actually, it’s a comment that I posted on Prindle’s website several years ago, that alludes to this fact but I originally discovered this with The Bells.
For reasons unknown to me know, I remember liking this album at the time. I seriously think it’s because I forced myself to spend some time with it. I didn’t have a lot of disposable income back then, so when I bought an album, even if it was only a buck, I spent a great amount of time listening to it, repeatedly, before shelving it. If you didn’t like an album, there’d better be a goddamn good reason why you didn’t like it because you can’t just piss money away.
And I do remember playing it to the point where the felt thing that pushed the tape against the tape head, eventually fell off, creating weird aural effects in the process.
Listening to The Bells now, I wonder if I was just completely drugged up in my original assessment.
Because I had such fond memories of this 1979 release from Lou, I put it on my Amazon wish list and contemplated spending money on getting a new copy of it. Don’t ever do that, particularly with any Lou Reed album.
Trust me, because a reprised review of The Bells proved to be an example of “What was I thinking” to the point where I really considered that I may have been going through a period of manic depression to actually enjoy an album of such torture.
You will hear Reedphiles claim that The Bells is actually a high point in Lou’s catalogue and one of his best albums of the 70’s. These people are insane. Do not listen to them.
The Bells is nothing more than a completely out-of-tune-and-completely-not-giving-a-shit-about-it Lou over a curious jazz-fusion arrangement lovingly captured by horrifically dated production values. And if that written explanation isn’t enough to scare you away, your first encounters with listening to The Bells will most certainly be enough to frighten you.
Grab a friend or loved one and go to Amazon.com and play a brief sample of the opening track “Stupid Man.” Watch their face as they cringe while Lou sings off-key, matching the word “man” phonetically with “Saskatchewan.” After the 30 second sample is over, ask them what they thought; it’s like your own little version of an auditorium test. If you’re loved one’s reaction is anything like my wife’s, you’ll get a scowl followed by the television volume increasing. I’m willing to bet you’ll have similar results and, here’s the thing, “Stupid Man” is one of the better songs on the album.
“City Lights” is Lou’s homage to Charlie Chaplin, and in the hands of a better singer, it might be a pretty good song. Reed, however, sings it in a key too low for him (think the “Elvira” dude from the Oak Ridge Boys) to the point where even the saxophone that tweeters around the song sounds like even its out of tune.
Then there’s “All Through The Night,” a track that finds Reed inexplicitly incorporating banter between the band members throughout the song, thereby distracting any chance of the listener following either the lyrics or the musicians.
Who happen to be notable, by the way: legendary jazz man Don Cherry plays a key role and even Nils Lofgren helps with several other meticulous session players that can’t do a damn thing to help make The Bells somewhat accessible to people with hearing.
Because of this, I’m still strangely drawn to it. For example, I went around the house singing “Stupid Man” to the wife (who immediately asked “What are you saying?” after I did it) in my best, off-key Lou Reed voice. I did the same thing for “City Lights,” but that was usually in the car with no one around.
I also think the throwaway, “Disco Mystic,” is actually pretty good and would consider throwing it on a mix tape.
But the pinnacle is the title track, a nine-minute tour de force exploration of free jazz and Reed’s whiney upper register, barking out “Here comes the bells!” It’s one of Reed’s strangest tracks ever, and it hints that Lou can be capable of surprises, even when he’s coked out of his mind and completely incapable of holding down a linear thought.
This is, at the end of it, the only lasting appeal of The Bells. The fact that it is so blatantly tuneless and uncommercial is amazing, as it was originally released on Clive Davis’ Arista Records. Clive is notorious for associating commercial success with greatness, so I find it amusing that Clive and his minions must have had to sit around and listen to this thing when Reed delivered it to them, desperately looking for some sentiment of a “hit” within the album.
In reality, The Bells is a one star album for anyone besides Lou Reed fans. Trust me, you’ll hate it. And I’m a Lou Reed fan, so I’m rating it a little higher. The only reason why is because there are some moments on The Bells in which I do find curious and will probably return to on occasion. If anything, I’ll listen to see if I can find that illusive reason why I found it so endearing when I was younger. Or I’ll finally discover that I was just stupid, man.