I Don't Get Lou Reed

A lot of my friends in college were Lou Reed and Velvet Underground fans. With a few exceptions I wasn't. ("Take a Walk on the Wild Side" was intriguing.) They said it was an acquired taste, like Andy Warhol. I wasn't a huge Warhol fan, but at least I got his art. Lou? Not so much.

Then I learned that Lou Reed wasn't as one dimensional as the softer music I kept hearing on the radio. Two of his albums woke me up, kicked me out of bed, and set my pants on fire.

First, of course, was _Rock 'n' Roll Animal_, a live album recorded at Howard Stein's Academy of Music in NYC in 1974. From the first, liquid notes of "Intro/Sweet Jane" to the butt kicking end of "Rock 'n; Roll", something leaped out of the speakers, grabbed hold and refused to let go. I don't tend to rank everything into lists the way some people (cough, Andy Whitman, cough) do, but this has to be one of my top ten favorite rock albums of all time. It's a party trapped in a disk (box, whatever). If nothing on this album makes you get up and dance, your legs were probably stolen while you weren't looking. I have a lot of guitar heroes, but this album put Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner near the top of the heap.

Next up, in 1975, was _Metal Machine Music_. This was as different from Animal as Animal was from any of Reed's early music you'd hear on the radio. MMM was essentially a wall of noise, either electronics going berserk per the original liner notes) or guitar feedback gone berserk (per Reed's later statements). The industrial scene and noise rock owe a lot to this album. It was originally released as a double vinyl album; the end of side four looped back on itself-- whether this was art or a joke is anyone's guess. But most people didn't even notice for quite some time. You either love or hate this one. I happen to love it. I have listened to it all the way through many, many times; I only know a handful of other people who have done so. In college, it nearly brought stoned peaceniks to blows on more than one occasion-- it grated on their ears too much.

So maybe I do get Lou Reed-- at least somewhat. Whether he would get me, I have no idea.

[The mix I currently listen to in my car includes soft to medium praise music, Rock 'n' Roll Animal, 90s punk, It's a Beautiful Day, the Allman Brothers Live at the Fillmore East, the 77s (rock), various incarnations of Daniel Amos (some of the weirdest music in all of Christendom), Skynyrd, Johnny Cash and many others. Pretty much everything but Nashville Country, bad rap... and soft Lou Reed.]