Lou Reed: The Blue Mask

I think Lou has asked himself the same question on many occasions

It's not his biggest seller – it's his highest charting album. His two biggest sellers are Rock and Roll Animal and New York.

and SCD peaked so high on the goodwill and sales built on Transformer and RARA.

It sold on the back of "Rock and Roll Animal", didn't it?

(xp)

I heard Transformer sold quite well too...

xpost me and my slow typing...

... in the UK it did, don't know how well it sold in the US. Also "Berlin" was in between it and "RnR Animal", and that bombed in the US (but did quite well in the UK)

NEW YORK???? Oh I hate that record! This one rules, tho. His goofy domestic stuff was cute and Waves of Fear is PERFECT. That shuddering but unresolving guitar/voice figure catches alcoholic wakeups way too well. What I don't get is how Lou doesn't realise he plays guitar better with SOMEONE ELSE. It doesn't make him look bad; it makes him play and sound a million times better.

Legendary Hearts is cute, not all that great. Mostly cos of ABOVE prob.

Eh. New Sensations had some of his best guitar playing, and he recorded alone.

LH is cute?!? It's even darker than TBM.

No it's not, it's got Rooftop Garden on it!

And I don't recall his guitar. I do recall Quine was on it but got mixed off.

Martial Law is, errrrrrrrrr, somewhat less dark than The Gun... for instance

But then you have the title track, "Betrayed," "Home of the Brave," "Bottoming Out."

Quine wasn't mixed off – he was mixed down. You can plainly hear his kind of solo on "Bottoming Out" and "Make Up."

from "LH":

Romeo, oh Romeo

Wherefore art thou Romeo?

He's in a car or at a bar

Or churning his blood with an impure drug

He's in the past and seems to be lost forever

yup still pretty much the best album ever

i'll put a hole in your face if you even breathe a word
tell the lady to lie down, i want you to be sure to see this, i wouldnt you miss a SA-cund
watch your wife
carrying a gun, shooting with a gun
dirty animal

going out on a limb here BUT:

Side A is the best side of any Lou solo album.

love this album.. quine's guitar solo on 'women' givs me chills

We could have used some of this enthusiasm for the 80s poll a couple weeks back. It didn't even make the top 100.

the gtr playing is awesome on this album but the songwriting is too earnest/obvious. it's like lou made his big comeback as a musician (yay!) at the same time that he kinda jumped the shark in terms of lyric writing. on the whole I prefer his trashy inconsistent 70s >>>>>> his "mature" work in the 80s and beyond. I mean lyrics like these are sheer genius:

She was the first girl in the neighbourhood
To wear tied-dyed pants, ah, like she should
She was the first girl that I ever seen
That had flowers painted on her jeans
She was the first girl in her neighbourhood
that got raped on Tompkins Square real good
Now she wears a sword, like Napoleon
And she kills the boys and acts like a son
Sally can't dance no more, Sally can't dance no more
She can't get herself off the floor, Sally, she can't dance no more
Sally became a big model, she moved up to eighties and park
She had a studio appartment and that's where she used to ball
folk singers, and that's where she used to ball folk singers
Sally can't dance no more, Sally can't get off of the floor

especially when compared to banality like "I love my motorcycle and my wife" etc etc

Lots of great lyrics on "The Blue Mask", some silly ones too, but it is Lou Reed after all

New Sensations > The Blue Mask

m. coleman basically on the money but I'll rep for Legendary Hearts as the last good one, the last hurrah, where the mature motorcycle man songwriting was, um, firing on all cylinders, hadn't yet crystallized into schtick and the Fernando Saunders whale sounds didn't overshadow the guitar playing.

never been able to get into this record. imho the best thing about it is the cover

New Sensations > The Blue Mask

I just checked, this opinion is still 100% batty

Heard it was originally supposed to be called Lou Sensations.

(You guys should listen to that NYPL VU interview, btw)

I love Lou, I think he's great

(You guys should listen to that NYPL VU interview, btw)

Downloading it

revisited this the other day - still lol'ing at Average Guy (my temperature is NINETY-EIGHT point TWO)

m coleman is one of my favorite ILM posters -- I look forward to them! -- but he's wrong about Reed's lyrics. "Our House" is a terrific piece of sustained writing, on every level (including musical).

I'm kinda of two minds about that one - its SO direct and literal, there's something kinda clumsy about it

But then the music churns and weaves itself around the verses and Lou's voice. My god, the intro -- how the guitars and bass create a very quiet ruckus, then settle....I can write reams about it.

I'm going to make one point abundantly clear: I cannot think of any belief system that can support the New Sensations > Blue Mask paradox. I'm just glad he didn't type Mistrial > Blue Mask, as that may have caused disruptions in the fabric of reality.

Wait a minute...

...Ooops.

I've listened to NS far more often and enjoy its pop knockoffs (the enjoyment of which taught me that Lou's jokes are more serious than his mature stuff). The production's awful though.

i've got a Japanese version of NS from a few years ago and it sounds a helluva lot better than the original release. the production still bugs me a little but not nearly as much as it did

revisited this the other day - still lol'ing at Average Guy (my temperature is NINETY-EIGHT point TWO)

my favorite thing about average guy, and maybe my favorite single thing Lou did in the 80s, is when, at the point where the singer's supposed to go "hey!" or "yeah!" he yells "average!"

what the fuck is this song about? I do not get these lyrics at all, really

The heroine stood up on the deck
the ship was out of control
the bow was being ripped to shreds
men were fighting down below
The sea had pummeled the boat for so long
that they knew nothing but fear

And the baby's in his box
he thinks the door is locked
the sea is in a state
the baby learns to wait for the heroine
Ohh, ohh, for the heroine
locked in his defense, he waits for the heroine

The mast is cracking as he waves are slapping
sailors roll across the deck
and when they thought no one was looking
they would cut a weaker man's neck
While the heroine dressed in a virgin white dress
tried to steer the mighty ship
But the raging storm wouldn't hear of it
they were in for a long trip

Baby's in the box
he thinks the door is locked
he finds it hard to breathe
drawing in the sea
And where's the heroine to fire off the gun
to calm the raging seas
and let herself be seized, by the -

- Baby in the box
he thinks the door is locked
the woman has the keys
but there is no moment she can seize
Here's to the heroine
who transcends all the men
Who are locked inside the box
will the lady let them out
Ohh, the heroine, ooohh, ooohhh, the heroine
Strapped to the mast, the pale ascendant heroine
strapped to the mast, the pale ascendant heroine

no idea.
yo la tengo and will oldham covered "heavenly arms" from this album a couple weeks ago. it wasn't very good, but they get points for trying.

i think this one is overrated, 3-4 really good songs tho

i finally found this at my record store yesterday! total classic imo, if only for the quines guitar playing (esp. at the end of Women), waves of fear, and heavenly arms

xxp el perro del mar does a really great cover of heavenly arms

First forty seconds of "My House" = glorious.

oooo and the drum fills towards the end of 'my house' !! really fits with quine's offtime-ish riffing and packs a punch

esp. at the end of Women
i might be wrong, but i think this is actually lou on lead.

ahh yeah, youre right. quine in the left channel, lou in the right

yeah, i think the only reason i know that is cuz lou takes the solo on the "night w/ lou reed" video (which is essnetial if you dig this album btw).
it is a great solo, though, kinda redeems the song imo.

Thirty years old today!

I remember where I was that day, I was upstate in a bar

you and your friend got out a ouija board

I think I was watching the team from the university play football on tv.

This indigestible hybrid of (Hart) Crane and Roethke.

You forgot top tier raconteur!

His most famous poems and a selected few others are good but yeah.

I know I seem to stand alone as his sole stan on ILB/X, but I feel something similar about Gilbert Sorrentino: indifferent to his poetry, jaw drops at everything else he does.

Coterie Writers Of Minimum Distinction Memorial Thread

The most recently, frequently revived Lou thread, so I'll paste this here, from ilxor tylerw's invaluable tumblr, doomandgloomfromthetomb:

Lou Reed - Tinley Park, Chicago, Illinois, September 12, 1992*

Last week, we heard Lou debut some spoken word renditions of a few Magic & Loss lyrics. Today, we get to hear them in a more traditional setting: you can’t beat two guitars, bass and drums. I’ve picked this particular show not only because it’s a very nice FM broadcast, but also because it features a very unique, very cool, very short-lived band: the awesome Marc Ribot on lead guitar and bassist Greg Cohen, along with drummer Michael Blair.

Ribot and Cohen at this point were probably best known for their work in the John Zorn and Tom Waits universes, and it’s interesting to hear their styles added to Lou’s early 1990s period. Ribot in particular is probably the most distinctive guitarist this side of Quine that Lou has worked with — and he sounds great here, going for broke in a way that Mike Rathke doesn’t. Check out his smoky solo on “Magician” or his driving, his shimmery sound on “Tell It To Your Heart” or his dramatic playing on “Sword of Damocles.” That latter tune is a highlight; towards the end, Lou quotes “Save The Last Dance For Me,” making its connection to Doc Pomus explicit. A really powerful moment!

I like the other Magic & Loss numbers, too — they’re a little more revved up and energetic, for sure. It’s also impressive that Lou tries to perform “Harry’s Circumcision” in front of a somewhat rowdy outdoor audience. He really believed in his new material — in fact, the set is dominated by late-period material, aside from a few obligatory walks on the wild side. Onwards!

Lou Says (1992): You’re confused because you’re thinking about pop music and pop records, or rock ‘n’ roll. Think about Brecht and Weill, “Seven Deadly Sins.” Boy, now I wish I had come up with that one first. If you think of it as Lou Reed music, not pop or rock, those expectations (of what kind of songs belong on a pop record) disappear, because they don’t exist for an artist… All the way back to “Heroin,” the idea was to tell stories from different points of view, with conflicting opinions. Some of it can seem very personal, or at least it comes across that way, because you’re acting. And then you can write something equally personal that’s completely at odds with what the first person said. Any great novel has lots of “personal things” floating through it, whatever the character you’re writing about.
*link is at top of tyler's page:
https://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/search/Lou%20Reed%20Marc%20Ribot