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(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
Summary.
Lou Reed,
Velvet Underground's vocalist,
became one of the most significant
voices of the 1970s and 1980s. From the very beginning, the decadence of urban
life was the central theme of his work. His approach wed
the Velvet Underground's psychedelic depression with new
expressionistic overtones, that become explicit on his first major artistic
success, Berlin (1973). His early albums were devoted to a
bleak analysis of the corrosive power of vice. Reed sang with almost no
emotion, and his albums had the feeling of reportages.
Reed's monotonous voice and light boogie rhythm virtually created a new
kind of singer-songwriter, one who can be simultaneously a detached observer
and an involved protagonist. Metal Machine Music (1975) represented
an odd parenthesis, but one that, in retrospect, announced industrial music
and noise music. A double album of pure cacophony, it stands as the most
unremitting sonic experience of the first 20 years of rock music.
Inevitably, he was adopted as a sort of guru by the punk generation, and
his Street Hassle (1978) reflects that meeting of two generations.
Blue Mask (1982) and Legendary Hearts (1983) signaled
adulthood, as Reed switched his focus from the basements of the junkies to the
neighborhoods of the middle class. A humbler, gentler Reed began to sing about
domestic and suburban issues. The ultimate extroverted became an
introverted, anti-heroic and populistic chronicler of the middle age.
New York (1989) was, in fact, his masterpiece.
In a sense, that album ended the pilgrimage that Reed had
begun in Berlin. It ended his moral odyssey in his own city.
It closed the circle. And, musically, it did so by quoting the roots of
American popular music, from folk to jazz to gospel to blues to country.
The mournful tone of these albums found an application within the private
sphere with two albums that are, de facto, requiems:
one for Andy Warhol,
Songs For 'Drella (1990), a collaboration with John Cale,
and one for friends who died, Magic And Loss (1992).
They compose the modern equivalent of a Medieval fresco of the years of the plague.
Full bio.
(Translated from
my original Italian text
by Vittorio Cecconi)
In his solo career, Lou Reed,
the Velvet Underground's legendary singer,
revisited the urban
life themes that he had explored with the band through an
expressionist-psychedelic approach. Without renouncing any part of that
exhilarating experience, and even keeping some iconic tracks in his
repertoire, Reed crafted metropolitan rock centered on vice and depravity, a
more commercial version of The Velvet Underground's paranoid and gritty
music. He amplified its decadent intent by adopting a fallen angel persona
(makeup, close-cropped hair, leather jacket, dark glasses) widely
disseminated by the media.
The early
years of his solo career are marked by sordid tributes to the accursed Paris
of bistros and spleen, parodies and delusions of 1930s Berlin (Nazism
and cabaret), and decayed, bleak, and hallucinatory depictions of urban
alienation. Examples include Wild Child and Berlin off
Lou Reed (RCA, 1972),
an intense nihilistic manifesto; Walk on the Wild
Side, a jazzy underground anthem for New York; Satellite of Love,
a vaudeville-like refrain; and the street manifesto Vicious, all from
Transformer (1972).
Later works include Sally Can't Dance, a tepid funk track from
the disappointing Sally Can't Dance (1974), and the tender,
understated Coney Island Baby off
Coney Island Baby (1976),
marking the emergence of a more confessional lyricism. Influenced by David
Bowie, Reed embraced the glam-rock trend of the era, albeit with a darker and
more distinguished tone.
Reed sang his
songs blending rock and roll with rhythm and blues, using his characteristic
spoken, apathetic, and casual delivery to captivate audiences. However, his
performances often leaned on a repetitive and self-referential style, making
him both a sinister figure in decadent rock and an unwitting legislator of
the punk ethos.
Berlin (1973), featuring orchestral arrangements and
suffused with some of the most depressive atmospheres of his career, morbidly
explores themes of suicide an idea that had already cast a macabre shadow
over much of The Velvet Underground s music. Songs like Caroline Says,
Sad Songs, and Lady Day reflect Reed's middle-European
aspirations.
The boldest moment of his career came with the surprise release of
Metal
Machine Music (1975), an electro-noise nightmare and one of the most
radical experiments of the century. Using only an arsenal of distorters,
amplifiers, filters, tremolo, and modulators, Reed created abstract
cacophonies devoid of any logical progression.
By the
mid-1970s, however, Reed seemed headed for decline, churning out a string of
mediocre albums, such as Rock and Roll Heart (Arista, 1976).
His
redemption came through punk audiences, who embraced him as the nihilistic
guru behind Street Hassle (1978). Despite ambitious compositions like
the eponymous three-movement string quartet suite and ballads such as Leave
Me Alone, as well as aggressive rock and roll tracks like Real Good
Time and I Wanna Be Black, the album revealed an uncomfortable
truth: the man idolised by teenagers as the "great elder" of the
underground was merely human. However, Reed's genius shone in his ability to
transform anaemic cocktail-lounge jazz and rhythm and blues into a form of
chamber music.
Subsequent
albums increasingly revealed Reed s vulnerable, human side, progressively
rejecting the mythos of vice, heroin, and the underworld. Frustrated by the
public and critics obsession with his decadent charisma, Reed incorporated
funk and jazz elements with greater subtlety in The Bells (1979), an
album that touched on more human aspects of his inspiration. His confessional
turn became more evident with Growing Up in Public (1980), marking his
final departure from provocation to embrace a benign, middle-class
sensibility.
The result was
Blue Mask (RCA, 1982), a humble and understated album that does not
even attempt to chase myth but instead focuses on singing, with bard-like
wisdom, about the failed lives of the marginalized and the suburban domestic
crises (the ironic vaudeville of Average Guy and Women),
creating a tableau of depravity reminiscent of Schaubroeck's Ratfucker.
It is a
transitional work that foreshadows a more introspective style but still
shines in the infernal tones of Blue Mask, pounding and
hyper-distorted; the sinister Gun (about a sadistic rapist); and the
epic devastation of Waves of Fear (featuring a stratospheric solo by
Robert Quine). This and subsequent albums marked a clear bourgeois turn for
the shaman of alienation, who, having settled down with a family, dedicated
himself to a more romantic style of songwriting, placing greater emphasis on
the themes of common people and essentially striving to craft adult-oriented
rock.
Legendary
Hearts (1983), featuring a quartet that included Robert Quine on guitar
and Fred Maher on drums, represents the musical peak of Reed's career. Here,
he sings in a less strained, more conversational, and at times even poignant
tone, delivering existential ballads such as Legendary Hearts, Last
Shot, and the majestic Betrayed. In these songs, he blends the
martial surges of religious hymns, the jingle-jangle of folk rock, and the
sombre cadences of nightclub rhythm and blues. The poet of metropolitan
desolation can finally shed the postures imposed upon him by progressive
intellectuals and reveal his true vocation decidedly anti-heroic and
populist as demonstrated by the subdued elegy Home of the Brave.
In reality, Reed's career is underpinned by a profound
thematic coherence. Despite having composed some of the great masterpieces of
despair, Reed has always softened the dark tones of his visions with elements
of compassion and hope. He has always been morally aligned with the victims
of alienation, loneliness, and marginalization, whom he has sung about in an often epic manner: first elevating them to heroes of
metropolitan civilization, and then empathetically observing their painful
defeats. The genocide of the newly humiliated, albeit expressed at different
levels, is a constant in his work.
The type of
encouragement Reed offered initially involved incitement to the most defiant
rebellion (through heroin, for example). But over time, his lyrics grew more
mature and self-aware, and his moral outlook shifted to ignoring the
hostility of the bourgeois: I just don t care is one of the most common
refrains in his songs. However, he could not hide the reality the ruthless
persecution carried out by the Establishment against his moral exiles.
Thus, the
serene resolution of New Sensations (1984), particularly the title
track, an anthem of his spiritual rebirth; the moralistic sermon Video
Violence (1986) on Mistrial (RCA, 1986); the joyous refrains of Down
at the Arcade (1984) and No Money Down (1986), his first
electronic hit; and the new love songs such as I Love You Suzanne
(1984) and Tell It to Your Heart (1986) all infused with a comedic
sexual imagery tied to a less romantic marital dynamic resonate as
self-critique and mea culpa, as well as newfound
wisdom. The sparse, understated sound and bitter social commentary of these
records primarily represent the redemption of a tormented existential
journey.
Reed s mature
arrival is epitomized by New York (Sire, 1989), which consecrates him
as a laconic urban preacher. Featuring one of the most experimental ensembles
of his career (Fred Maher, Bob Wasserman, Mike Rathke, and Maureen Tucker),
it ideally completes the circle, ending in his home city (on a Dirty
Boulevard) the moral odyssey that began in Berlin. No one like
Reed can distil from country (Endless Cycle), boogie (There Is No
Time, with some of the most devastating riffs of his career), gospel (Dirty
Blvd, perhaps the crowning achievement of his saga of impoverished
neighbourhoods), honky-tonk (Sick of You), folk (Romeo and Juliet,
tinged with echoes of Desolation Row), and jazz (Beginning of a
Great Adventure) a guitar-driven music so raw and powerful. Recycling the
chords of Sweet Jane for the thousandth time (Busload of Faith),
mimicking the martial attack of Waiting for My Man (Straw Man),
Reed encapsulates in a classic form the style of decadent balladry he has
been perfecting album by album since the days of the later Velvet
Underground.
Songs For 'Drella (Sire, 1990), featuring John Cale on piano, is an unusual rock requiem for Andy Warhol.
(Original text by Piero Scaruffi)
Magic And Loss (Sire, 1992) is another requiem, this time for friends
who died. Each song is about death, a theme that Reed's career has
been imbued with since the very beginning. But here is not a Freud-ain
death wish. Death is rather a noble, titanic battle that humans carry on
from generation to generation against an overwhelming force.
The touching intensity of Magician,
the dramatic tension of The Sword Of Damocles,
the harrowing Goodbye Mass,
the anthemic burst of Power And Glory,
the mystic vision of Magic And Loss
compose the modern equivalent of a Medieval fresco of the years of the plague.
Reed doesn't even try to find a good melody for his stories. This is "ambient"
music: the music paints a mood, a gloomy mood, and then the words simply
inhabit that mood.
Set The Twilight Reeling (Warner, 1996), recorded half live and half
in studio, breaks the pattern that the previous albums had created. Lou Reed
the bleak prophet of urban alienation and moral devastation turns into a
poet of simpler, calmer values. The seven-minute blues Riptide is
the centerpiece, but Reed's rock and roll numbers (NYC Man,
Hookywooky, The Proposition) are more memorable.
Ecstasy (Reprise, 2000) offers the best of both worlds: a set of
accomplished and engaging songs in the traditional format
(Turning Time Around, Paranoia Key Of E,
Big Sky, Modern Dance)
and some of his most daring experiments in the psychedelic vernacular:
Tatters, Mystic Child, Rock Minuet and the 18-minute Like A Possum (Lou Reed goes slo-core?).
The Raven (Sire, 2003), which comes in an extended version (generous
with the spoken-voice pieces) and a condensed version, is a tribute to
Edgar Allan Poe's poetry and includes contributions from a number of
distinguished guests
(musicians such as Ornette Coleman, Laurie Anderson, the McGarrigle sisters and
David Bowie as well as actors such as Willem Defoe, Steve Buscemi,
Amanda Plummer, Elizabeth Ashley).
Texture should be the key element in such a project. Instead,
except for Guilty (Ornette Coleman on sax), textures are fairly trivial
and unimaginative.
The combination of spoken-word and sound texture almost never works.
With the exception of Who Am I, Vanishing Act and
Call On Me, the ballads are mediocre.
The more "electric" moments sound particularly inept
(A Thousand Departed Friends, Burning Embers).
Bottom line: experiments are not always great art.
Unlike Metal Machine Music, that surpassed its age and stands as
a monolith of wisdom
(and gets homaged on the extended version by Fire Music),
this hodgepodge of rock and poetry is simply misguided.
One can even suspect that this not a Lou Reed album at all: producer Hal Willner
may be the real culprit.
Animal Serenade (Warner, 2004) is a mediocre and confused
double-disc live album that mixes past and present (probably because the present
wouldn't be too appealing without the past).
There are several revised versions of Reed's classics (all of them vastly
inferior to the original versions) and some new songs, mostly trivial
and stereotyped. Part of it are plain tedious. Some songs are not even Reed's.
This album is a good definition of the word "decline".
Coming full circle after the Metal Machine Music of 32 years earlier,
the 65-year old Lou Reed delivered an album of instrumental ambient music for
new-age meditation and relaxation,
Hudson River Wind Meditations (Gemini Sun, 2007), also containing four lengthy
pieces.
Unlike Metal Machine Music, that was 25 years ahead of its time,
these "meditations" are rather derivative: the 28-minute Move Your Heart
sounds like a revisitation of the repetitive pulsing minimalism of
Steve Reich,
the 32-minute Find Your Note is a droning exercise in the old vein of
LaMonte Young, etc.
It was originally recorded for his own meditation, not meant to be sold.
A live 2008 performance of
Lou Reed,
Laurie Anderson and
John Zorn was documented
on The Stone Issue 3 (Tzadik, 2008).
The concept of Lulu (Warner, 2011), a collaboration between
Lou Reed and
Metallica, was not necessarily flawed.
The problem with the album is simply that the songs are mediocre, uninspired,
trivial and dejavu.
The effect of matching Lou Reed's existential rigmarole with Metallica's
superhuman riffs in Brandenburg Gate is to evoke
Neil Young
and Warren Zevon.
Reed sings these "lieder" inspired by Wedekind's tragedies
from the perspective of the betrayed girl, except that Reed turns her into
a visceral punkette who is angry and bitter at everybody.
One would never guess that Reed is almost 70: he has never sounded like a
punk-rock shouter before.
The voice betrays his age when he goes for poetry instead of guts, like in
Pumping Blood, which could be an early
Patti Smith spasm,
and the manic propulsive Mistress Dread (the album's standout),
which sounds like a lethargic
Tom Waits smoking his last cigarette while the
Earth is exploding.
Iced Honey is quintessential Lou Reed fare, but sung as if Reed could collapse at any time.
The last five songs are long, perhaps overlong.
The eleven-minute Cheat On Me is menacing psychodrama but too little
happens to justify its repetitive structure (and awful call-and-response with
Hatfield).
The eight-minute Frustration is a bit better in terms of orchestration
and development but Reed's voice fails him badly (it's more a spoken-word
piece than a song, and not intentionally so).
The eleven-minute Dragon boasts an anthemic riff but, again, there is
little other than vanity and presumption to justify its duration, with Reed's
voice barely trying to modulate a melody.
The eight-minute subdued acoustic Little Dog, smothered in
droning psychedelic guitars, abandons any pretense of metal bombast and possibly
succeeds where the rest had failed.
Ditto for the 19-minute Junior Dad, a tender midtempo lullaby with
strings and a more credible combination of plain voice and rock music.
In the grand scheme of things Metallica are negligible: Reed could have hired
any heavy-metal band with equally loud results.
The double-disc retrospective NYC Man (2003) was a wasted opportunity:
Reed selected his favorite songs and they were remastered, but, unfortunately,
he selected mostly minor ballads.
Saxophonist Ulrich Krieger (famous for transcribing Metal Machine Music for orchestra) and electronic musician Sarth Calhoun formed a trio with Lou Reed, the Metal Machine Trio, that debuted in 2008, to play music inspired by Metal Machine Music. Two live performances are collected on The Creation of the Universe (2008).
Lou Reed died in 2013 at the age of 71.
"His songs of the pain and beauty in the world will fill many people with the incredible joy he felt for life" (Laurie Anderson).
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