Lou Reed has left us.
Reed passed away at the age of 71 on October 27th. No
cause of death has been released yet, but Reed had been suffering
from liver problems, having undergone a liver transplant in April.
Reed's contributions
to rock and experimental music can't be understated. His musical
career was a rocky one, and started ignobly. His love for 50s doo wop
music got him into recording and one of his first gigs was for the
cut rate Pickwick label, writing music without credit. It even
spawned a minor hit for him in 1964 called “The Ostrich”.
It wasn't until Reed
met Welsh cellist John Cale that his star began to rise. Together
with Moe Tucker and Sterling Morrison, Reed and Cale formed The
Velvet Underground, Cale had been part of Reed's band in “The
Ostrich” sessions, and introduced him to New York's avant-garde
scene through La Monte Young's Theater of Eternal Music. After some
performances, the band caught the attention of Andy Warhol, who paired
the band with Nico, and helped put out their debut album The Velvet
Underground and Nico in 1966.
The Velvet Underground
were unlike any band at the time. Reed's penchant for classic rock
merged with Cale's instincts for free-jazz, neo-classical and general
musical experimentation and formed something very unique for the
time, something so forward looking that it almost had no place in the
mid 60s. The Velvets put out several albums through multiple
line-ups, all of them commercial failures, but they inspired a decade
of influential musicians, from prog rockers to punks. Without the
early experiments of the Velvet Underground, there would be no punk
scene, or art-rock scene, or perhaps any type of scene in New York.
Reed left the band in
1970, in pretty acrimoniously fashion. Earlier, new manager Steve
Sesnick convinced Reed to fire Cale. Feuding with Cale, Reed left and
the rest of the band followed suit in the next few years, leaving it
to shamble around under new band leader Doug Yule, who had replaced
Cale, until 1973.
Reed's solo career has
been up and down, but contains many landmarks and stellar recordings.
His first big album was 1972's Transformer, produced by Mick Ronson
and David Bowie. This album contained his first hit “Walk on the
Wildside” and one of his best known and loved songs “Perfect
Day”. Reed followed this with the critically acclaimed Berlin, a
dark album about the seedy underbelly of Berlin.
Reed released Metal
Machine Music in 1975 to derision. The album is a difficult listen,
two albums of electronic and guitar noise with little structure. The
album remains a highly influential album to avant-garde and noise
musicians though.
The 80s saw Reed
mellow after his marriage to Sylvia Morales. He recorded The Blue
Mask in 1982, probably his best album of the 80s. His material in the
mid 80s had a poppy quality to it. The 80s culminated with a reunion
with Cale for 1990's Songs for Drella, a tribute album to Warhol,
and his concept album New York in 1989, about the lives of people he
saw in New York.
The early 90s saw the
Velvets reunite for some benefit concerts, then an induction into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.
Reed continued to
record through the 90s and 2000s, and he married electric-violinist
Laurie Anderson in 2008.
Reed's career was very
hit and miss and quite iconoclastic. He had a bristly personality,
often scathing of his critics and fans. Among my friends, we had a
term called “Lou Reed syndrome”. For us, it seemed like Lou Reed
lacked a certain internally critical voice. For every album he
produced, there seemed to be one brilliant track, then 10-12 songs of
indulgent and tuneless songs. Whenever I run into an album with one
track and then 10 songs of dreck, I tend to say the artist caught
“Lou Reed syndrome”.
For me, Reed's most
stellar work was his work with the Velvets, with Loaded and White
Light/White Heat being his best work. Upon hearing “The Gift” for
the first time in the late 80s, my mind was opened even more to the
possibilities of music as art. His work in experimentation in music is
legendary. He will be missed.
RIP Lou Reed
