Reed's very best album, this stark, often depressing work contains great songwriting and features well-played, sympathetic accompaniment. The breadth of Reed's...
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Transformer and "Walk on the Wild Side" were both major hits in 1972, to the surprise of both Lou Reed and the music industry, and with Reed suddenly a hot commodity, he...
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In October 1990, Lou Reed interviewed Vaclav Havel, playwright, poet, president of the newly emancipated Czechoslovakia, and -- surprisingly? -- a Velvet Underground fan....
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Sometimes deliberately stupid--as Reed often delights in being--and sometimes almost threatening (as in "Kicks"), the songs on Coney Island Baby show many sides of Lou...
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From 1972's Transformer onward, Lou Reed spent most of the '70s playing the druggy decadence card for all it was worth, with increasingly mixed results. But on Coney Island...
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Many of Reed's second-period RCA recordings were satisfying in the short term but ultimately a disappointment. Mostly notable for Reed's singing about how much he enjoys...
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If Legendary Hearts seemed like a disappointment in 1983, that was largely because the year before Lou Reed had released The Blue Mask, one of the finest albums of his...
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In theory the "rejects" from the same concert recordings that produced the previous Rock 'N' Roll Animal, the songs here are much less familiar than those covered on...
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Three songs from Transformer, two songs from Berlin, and the Velvet Underground's "I'm Waiting for the Man." Just a shade less visceral than Rock 'n' Roll Animal. ~ Rob...
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With 1982's The Blue Mask, Lou Reed began approaching more mature and challenging themes in his music, and in 1992, Reed decided it was time to tackle the Most Serious Theme...
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New York City figured so prominently in Lou Reed's music for so long that it's surprising it took him until 1989 to make an album simply called New York, a set of 14 scenes...
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Many of Reed's second-period RCA recordings were satisfying in the short term but ultimately a disappointment. Aside from the odd title track--like, who's really on...
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After three successive accomplished and mature albums, Lou Reed made an attempt to stay current with the stilted Mistrial. Six of the songs are driven by drum machines,...
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Many of Reed's second-period RCA recordings were satisfying in the short term but ultimately a disappointment. With 1982's The Blue Mask out of print, this is his most...
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Lou Reed never struck anyone as one of the happiest guys in rock & roll, so some fans were taken aback when his 1984 album New Sensations kicked off with "I Love You,...
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In many ways hilarious when this first surfaced--largely because it was difficult to believe Reed would want his songs mangled in such dopey heavy-metallic manner--this at...
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In 1974, after the commercial disaster of his album Berlin, Lou Reed needed a hit, and Rock 'n' Roll Animal was a rare display of commercial acumen on his part, just the...
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Given the large number of stylistic detours and periodic creative dead ends that have marked Lou Reed's career, it isn't surprising that his body of work doesn't readily...
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Though Reed reportedly hated this album upon its release--and so did many critics--in fact it's great fun, and all the more remarkable for its deliberate throwaway...
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Following the self-conscious artiness of Berlin, Sally Can't Dance was Lou Reed's blatant stab at commercial success, featuring beefed-up guitar riffs, horn charts, and the...
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Reed's finest Arista album, this features a vocal cameo by Bruce Springsteen on the title track and one of the most enjoyably hate-filled songs ever with "Dirt."...
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The rise of the punk/new wave movement in the late '70s proved just how pervasive Lou Reed's influence had been through the past decade, but it also gave him some stiff...
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His "comeback" album--since absolutely no one purchased his first solo album, and RCA seems intent upon not reissuing it--this is well- produced, David Bowie-sponsored...
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An unwieldy title for a collection that could, just as easily, have been titled after "Walk on the Wild Side" alone. That was, after all, the only track in sight that even...
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Walk on the Wild Side: The Best of Lou Reed was the standard record company "hits" compilation surveying Reed's five-year, eight-album sojourn at RCA from 1972 to 1976. Its...
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In 1982, 12 years after he left the Velvet Underground, Lou Reed released The Blue Mask, the first album where he lived up to the potential he displayed in the most...
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Lou Reed and John Cale's Andy Warhol-based reunion album is, sad to say, more notable for Cale's contributions than Lou Reed's. Reed should form a band with him. Oh, er,...
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David Bowie has never been shy about acknowledging his influences, and since the boho decadence and sexual ambiguity of the Velvet Underground's music had a major impact on...
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Most of Reed's Warner Bros. albums have emerged to great critical huzzahs--and largely ignored the fact that Reed simply hardly sings at all anymore. He does here, on a...
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After contemplating the decline of New York City, the passing of his mentor Andy Warhol, his place in (perhaps) the greatest American rock band of all time, and the very...
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Lou Reed hasn't made a truly great album in a long time. Some would say since New York ; some would say even longer than that. The artist received a shot of unexpected...
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By 1997, the "Unplugged" craze, in which nearly every rocker under the sun decided to look back on their songbook with tasteful and unamplified maturity, had just about run...
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After the harrowing triumph of Street Hassle, Lou Reed's The Bells sounded like a bit of a step back; it returned Reed to the more listener-friendly, keyboard-dominated...
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Growing Up in Public was a transitional album for Lou Reed; it was his last set with his long-running road band (dominated by keyboardist Michael Fonfara), and while the...
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"I do Lou Reed better than anybody, so I thought I'd get in on it," Reed says at one point during this double live set, and that seems to sum up the album's theme quite...
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Lou Reed is very much an album-oriented artist, and those who think they may develop a serious interest in his work are better advised to seek individual titles than...
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Some people view Lou Reed as a living legend, one of rock 'n' roll's true icons. Other people think he's a godawful hack whose influence is way out of proportion to his...
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Rock and Roll Heart was Lou Reed's first album for Arista Records, and one senses that he wanted to come up with something saleable for his new sponsors. Uptempo numbers...
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Never let it be said that Lou Reed has lost the ability to surprise his audience; who would have thought that at the age of 58, on his first album of the new millennium,...
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True story: At a NYC showing of the last James Bond flick a friend and I sat in the balcony of our neighborhood multiplex. Behind us a couple argued over moving or staying...
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Edgar Allan Poe was a man who usually looked on the dark side of life, had more than a few less-than-healthy romantic and sexual obsessions, was known to dabble in dangerous...
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Apparently the notion of Lou Reed reinterpreting the works of Edgar Allan Poe didn't strike a positive chord with many folks, given the chilly commercial and critical...
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Lou Reed has been the subject of many compilations, one of them being 2003's double-disc, 31-track NYC Man: The Ultimate Lou Reed Collection, which covers everything from...
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David Bowie has never been shy about acknowledging his influences, and since the boho decadence and sexual ambiguity of the Velvet Underground's music had a major impact on...
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It's widely agreed among Lou Reed connoisseurs that his 1984 release Live in Italy is one of the best live albums of his recording career. But since it was never issued...
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Few rockers have been as 'New York City to the bone' as Lou Reed. So it's fitting that a double-disc set was issued in 2003 titled NYC Man: The Ultimate Lou Reed Collection,...
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Lou Reed's calm, yet ominous song "Perfect Day" has been attracting attention since it first appeared on his Transformer album in 1972, particularly in the U.K., and...
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Another year, another Lou Reed compilation. Or perhaps more accurately -- come the early 21st century, another year, another few Lou Reed compilations. Yes, the pace has...
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This recording of a 1972 radio show has been available in numerous guises for many years; the label listed is merely about the easiest to find as of the mid-'90s. This is...
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Robert Quine has said that the personal and musical differences that led to the end of his working relationship with Lou Reed had put a wall between them well before he...
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Edgar Allan Poe was a man who usually looked on the dark side of life, had more than a few less-than-healthy romantic and sexual obsessions, was known to dabble in dangerous...
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