lou reed

in the current perfect sound forever, thom robinson proposes a reassessment of neglected lou reed albs. i'm right there with him, 'cos while i consider myself a lifelong (well, since high school, anyway) fan of uncle lou's, i'm not a fan of any of his "big" (artistically speaking, not commercially) albs except for the late-'80s "return to form" new york. i found the bowiefied transformer too precious, except for three songs ("vicious," "satellite of love," "i'm so free"); i generally don't like "important" albs like berlin (bob ezrin gearing up for the wall in the same way the mc5's back in the u.s.a. was jon landau gearing up for born to run); and while the blue mask contained lou's most scorching _rock_ music since the second velvets album, his true forte since that alb's "i heard her call my name" has been as a songwriter, not a sonic innovator, and two of the blue mask's ten songs (i'm thinking of "women" and "heavenly arms") are as trite as transformer's "perfect day" and "new york telephone conversation."

robinson specifically touts the bells, legendary hearts, and ecstasy as being worthy. never was much into the first of these three, even though it had a guest cameo by ornette's trumpet-playing accomplice don cherry on it. the second is one of my faves, as i've written elsewhere on this very blog. robinson crabs about the mix favoring bassist fernando saunders over lou and ex-voidoid bob quine (r.i.p.)'s gtrs, but a dominant, melodic bass (played by saunders or the also-excellent rob wasserman) has been a feature of all of lou's latter-day recs; this is just where it started. the third is one i remember being quite enamored of when it was released in y2k, in spite of its containing an 18-minute song ("like a possum") and another that was kinda shocking-for-its-own-sake ("rock minuet"). on ecstasy, uncle lou confronted the death of lurrrve in the same clear-eyed way he examined sobriety on legendary hearts, urban decay on new york, and death on magic and loss. and it contains one of his very best songs, "baton rouge," wherein he somewhat wistfully conjures a plausible road-not-taken (straight life, family, dog, backyard barbecues) only to blow it away like smoke at the end. not bad for a guy who's spent the last 20 yrs or so denying his speedfreak-junkie-queer past (documented with great voyeuristic relish by saint lester, mcneil 'n' mccain, victor bockris, et al.) and actually went to the extent of making a spoken word alb with cameos by steve buscemi and willem dafoe as if to prove he's _not_ the creepiest guy in noo yawk.