Lou Reed Solo

I wanna hooky wooky with you! I am also partial to "looking for love" and several tunes from the bells…was it somewhere on ILM that somebody was talking about they can't take fretless? Saunders forever! Quine/Saunders/Maher is one of my favorite bands ever; live in Italy is terrific…

was it somewhere on ILM that somebody was talking about they can't take fretless?

*raises hand*

my tolerance of this sound is... limited. Mostly to XTC records lol

Fernando Saunders taught me to love it in limited quantities, like frosting.

Same here, I enjoy his playing on those records.

Chalk me up as another who has little time for the whale song of the fretless.

Generally have no time for them but I like Fernando's playing - would prefer him on a fretted bass though.

Let us do what you fear most
that from which you recoil

"that from which" in a pop song: is this the only instance! I love its formality, for underlining the seriousness of the sentiments being expressed.

or to make it rhyme

MOVE ALONG

and ignore those that lou wronged 🎶

I don’t think he’s trying to force a rhyme there? I agree w/Euler about that line...

the bells is a fucking awesome album

is it weird to find "i want to boogie with you" really beautiful

also some version of spiritualized was hatched out of that song

I love plenty of purportedly unloveable lou e.g. "sally" but the bells is dire

some of the nils longfren cowrites do sound written an octave outside of lou's range

but idk it strikes me as rock and roll heart merged with street hassle, which i'm into, lou having a blast with horns in every fluctuating foot of stereo space. the second side is all really good especially "families" and the title track

Used to be down on The Bells and think stuff on it like “Disco Mystic” was ridiculous, but now I think maybe it is ridiculously great. Seem to remember on one of the WPIX shows, maybe not one that resurfaced, that Lou was asked if it was a negation or everything he had ever done and he said “it’s a CONTINUATION of everything I’ve ever done.”

"lou's range"

Literally laughing out loud right now.

I’m laughing on the inside.

Agree that The Bells splits the difference between a couple of different other Lou albums. It sounds like if he had decided to sing more songs on Take No Prisoners than just “Coney Island Baby.”

I love plenty of purportedly unloveable lou e.g. "sally" but the bells is dire

― she carries a torch. two torches, actually (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi),

"Looking for Love" though. And "Families."

just speaking for myself "Families" is one of the worst songs I've ever heard by anybody so we're gonna have to agree to disagree here

lol

So you are saying you don’t really like “Families” all that much, is that it?

after some consideration no not really my thing lol

JCLC when will the axe you have so dutifully ground to an unnecessary sharpness for Lou Reed finally become dull

Families, Disco Mystic, I Wanna Boogie With You are all great imho.

JCLC when will the axe you have so dutifully ground to an unnecessary sharpness for Lou Reed finally become dull

Wait lets throw in a beach boys song for good measure

Hadn’t noticed that he had beef with them.

I didn't even include The Bells in my list of his best. At this stage in his life he couldn't even concentrate on failed experiments.

I believe the Kokomo thread contains JCLC’s most scholarly opinions on their output

Xp

DISCO. DISCO MYSTIC.

― balls and adieu (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, July 27, 2010 9:09 AM (eight years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I dislike the Beach Boys but Outis evidently has confused "occasionally gives voice to how much I dislike the Beach Boys" with "is on a crusade about it." idgaf honestly they're just fun to hate on because they suck. with Lou it's different, his best work is some of the best rock ever made & his worst work is considerably worse than the Mighty Mighty Bosstones on a bad day. The Bells figures in this latter category.

also my first post on this thread was in defense of Sally Can't Dance, I honestly think I like Lou more than most people I just don't think his shitty "I'm working something out here" albums are secret strokes of genius, they're just bad

^^^ wanna boogie with you imo

I'll insist forever that, obvious exceptions noted, Reed solo is best at the throwaway ("Sally Can't Dance," "I Love You, Suzanne," "Hookywooky").

There’s no law against disliking The Beach Boys, you can hate them in fact, but declaring they “suck” is simply a wrong opinion

i don't think it's particularly a secret stroke of genius, it just surprised me! it's a v odd record

bad Lou Reed albums:

Sally Can't Dance
Metal Machine Music
Rock and Roll Heart
The Bells
Growing Up in Public
Mistrial

Metal Machine Music may be a bad Lou Reed album, but it's a great album. It's unique in its transgression and its impact on the medium, and a scouring pad for the mind. I don't put it on if I want to listen to music, but sometimes I put it on because I need what it provides.

this is pretty much The Ostrich Part II
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WsshDpMrxg

xp I'm sympathetic to that reading of MMM

DISCO. DISCO MYSTIC.

― balls and adieu (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, July 27, 2010 9:09 AM (eight years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

bad Lou Reed albums:

sally and mmm are both good and great respectively. rock and roll heart deserves way less hate than it gets though the biggest things it has going for it are "you wear it so well," "ladies pay," the title track, and "temporary thing"

you are making me listen to Sally again...

SCD is a solid album.

maybe, I don't enjoy it

I like Sally Can't Dance the way I like Draw the Line, but suspect it's incomprehensible to anybody who's not already invested in the Lou mythos, which means it's probably a shitty album, even though it's the Lou solo record I'm most likely to play after Coney Island Baby

not sure what myth I'm supposed to buy into, usually being a huge Lou Reed fan works for me

what I mean is "does where Lou was at in his life at the time factor at all into the way you listen to the album" - I generally resist this kind of listening & think it's basically made most music writing unreadable in 2018, but as a guy who spent a whole lotta time thinking about Lou as a person/persona and not just "the guy who made these records" I can't fully separate myself from that mythos, it's part of how I relate to this music. I think if you're just listening to the music as-is without other stuff informing your ear, SCD probably sucks pretty bad.

aah ok I get that, indeed I don't know much about what he was up to, seems like more of an outlier than a transitional album