I love Sally Can't Dance! "Animal Language"! "Kill Your Sons"! "Billy"!
Of the 70s joints I've never really warmed to Rock'n'Roll Heart, I mean it's ok, I just don't love it
― chr1sb3singer, Friday, 12 July 2019 18:12 (four years ago) link
R&RH is way duller than SCD
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 12 July 2019 18:13 (four years ago) link
I pretty much like all his 70s albums tbh.
― Orpheus Knutt (Tom D.), Friday, 12 July 2019 18:18 (four years ago) link
Me too. It’s the 80s when he lost me.
― Vini C. Riley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 12 July 2019 19:39 (four years ago) link
yup
― Οὖτις, Friday, 12 July 2019 19:40 (four years ago) link
I like the first half of the 80s well enough. I haven't listened to much thereafter.
― Orpheus Knutt (Tom D.), Friday, 12 July 2019 19:41 (four years ago) link
For instance I've never heard Mistrial.
― Orpheus Knutt (Tom D.), Friday, 12 July 2019 19:42 (four years ago) link
Alfred will never convince me of the virtues of Fernando Saunders's aimless bass farts
― Οὖτις, Friday, 12 July 2019 19:42 (four years ago) link
That sounds like a great credit: "Fernando Saunders on aimless bass".
― frustration and wonky passion (C. Grisso/McCain), Friday, 12 July 2019 19:43 (four years ago) link
Yeah, the overdetermination of offenses including the Saunders abf, the tipping point where the Sprechgesang became more Sprechge than sang, and the endless guitar and microphone tech talk obsession that nevertheless seem to result in a generic clanky dry Strat sound or whatever.
― Vini C. Riley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 12 July 2019 20:08 (four years ago) link
haha yeah for someone who was reportedly super-obsessive about guitar sounds, from the late 70s on Lou's preferences are um strange to say the least.
― Οὖτις, Friday, 12 July 2019 20:10 (four years ago) link
Including live records, I think Saunders has played on more of Lou's albums than any other musician.
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Friday, 12 July 2019 20:14 (four years ago) link
Seventies Lou:
Coney Island BabyTransformerRock 'n' Roll Animal
Eighties Lou:
The Blue MaskLegendary HeartsNew Sensations
Include New York (I won't but I won't quibble), Set the Twilight Reeling and Ecstasy and you've got one helluva run. To me it's an indisputable fact that Reed wrote more good songs and played and sang them better after 1982. I'm sorry if the so-called transgression of the seventies excites you. To me, the transgression was necessary for him to see the weird in the normal, like David Lynch learned.
Key line: "Things are never good, things go from bad to weird"
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 12 July 2019 20:22 (four years ago) link
Berlin is sodden garbage -- an unnecessary and swollen gesture after TVU&N and WL/WH.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 12 July 2019 20:23 (four years ago) link
lol I'm listening to it right now
― Οὖτις, Friday, 12 July 2019 20:26 (four years ago) link
it's always seemed like an interesting failure tbh
that's my thought about Mistrial.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 12 July 2019 20:27 (four years ago) link
like, the last producer Lou Reed is Bob Goddamn Ezrin.
yeah the conventional wisdom that this was a terrible mismatch rings true
― Οὖτις, Friday, 12 July 2019 20:29 (four years ago) link
"The Kids" works, but it could've been on Transformer.
Actually, the conventional wisdom is that it's one of his greatest records, unfairly maligned at the time.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 12 July 2019 20:31 (four years ago) link
maligning was fair, was what I was getting at
― Οὖτις, Friday, 12 July 2019 20:41 (four years ago) link
I love it. I didn't hear it until 2013, but it made me realize that huh, I guess I really did want to hear Lou Reed's The Wall.
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Friday, 12 July 2019 20:45 (four years ago) link
Weird to see only three mentions of Street Hassle on this thread. Always liked that one though that’s also bc it was my first Lou solo LP. I can’t rate it over some of the others of his I’ve picked up since though.
― omar little, Friday, 12 July 2019 20:46 (four years ago) link
related: https://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?action=showall&boardid=41&threadid=15150
― Οὖτις, Friday, 12 July 2019 20:49 (four years ago) link
Feel like Street Hassle gets more play on some other Lou threads. The album as whole is a bit uneven but the title track is a definite career high point.(xp)
― Vini C. Riley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 12 July 2019 20:50 (four years ago) link
At the end of this thread I put a link to a good article about the recording of Street Hassle, which I probably should have put at the end of the Street Hassle thread itself, but hey, I’m unpredictable, just like Lou himself: In Praise Of...Lou Reed "Take No Prisoners"
― Vini C. Riley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 12 July 2019 20:59 (four years ago) link
To me, the transgression was necessary for him to see the weird in the normalSorry, to me there is something disingenuous about his latter day fascination with the normal. Perhaps Shakey and I, as readers of the rolling sf thread, are especially wary of this cheesy defamiliarization technique.
― Vini C. Riley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 12 July 2019 21:08 (four years ago) link
honestly I could care less about the shift in lyrical content, if there even is much of one, it's the sonics I can't stand
― Οὖτις, Friday, 12 July 2019 21:10 (four years ago) link
Perhaps you would have preferred if he had started playing fingerstyle?
― Vini C. Riley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 12 July 2019 21:10 (four years ago) link
thumbstyle
― Οὖτις, Friday, 12 July 2019 21:11 (four years ago) link
LOL I don't necessary agree, but this is a great post
― stan by me (morrisp), Friday, 12 July 2019 21:12 (four years ago) link
― Vini C. Riley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 12 July 2019 21:14 (four years ago) link
Sorry, to me there is something disingenuous about his latter day fascination with the normal.
have you heard him sing? It's like imagining Donald Trump singing nursery rhymes. The Fascination with the Normal is precisely what gives those post-1982 albums (the good ones) their creepiness.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 13 July 2019 12:49 (four years ago) link
Are you saying the creepiness is intentional? And desirable?
― Ask Heavy Manners (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 13 July 2019 14:09 (four years ago) link
Unintentional and desirable.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 13 July 2019 14:11 (four years ago) link
What about ostensibly clumsy stuff like the oft quoted couplet “My Dedalus to your Bloom/ was such a perfect wit”? What’s your take on this kind of thing?
― Ask Heavy Manners (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 13 July 2019 14:15 (four years ago) link
Xgau says that it “honors the way that people really talk.” But who talks like that but Lou and pretentious permanent literature undergrads like the guy who was flirting with Laurie Anderson a few posts up? Delmore Schwartz himself wouldn’t be caught dead in a pauper’s grave with a sentence like that coming out of his mouth or pen.
― Ask Heavy Manners (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 13 July 2019 14:19 (four years ago) link
To me that's just a different kind of stupid from Lou's 70s stupid.
― Orpheus Knutt (Tom D.), Saturday, 13 July 2019 14:22 (four years ago) link
Me too, but I liked 70s stupid better, it’s of a piece with 70s NYC cinema.
― Ask Heavy Manners (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 13 July 2019 14:30 (four years ago) link
It’s like the taking of the Pelham 1,2,3
― Ask Heavy Manners (James Redd and the Blecchs)
I would preferred "My Dedalus to your Bloom/I'm such a nitwit"
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 13 July 2019 14:36 (four years ago) link
If Sterling has been around he probably would have asked for the lyric to be changed to that.
― Ask Heavy Manners (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 13 July 2019 14:40 (four years ago) link
Growing Up In Public, for all its numerous faults, is the perfect bridge between 70s and 80s stupid.
― Orpheus Knutt (Tom D.), Saturday, 13 July 2019 14:40 (four years ago) link
i like the "such a perfect wit" line bc it's v earnest, the kind of error you preserve bc the syntax is so weird it's personal, it's not about reflecting some cultural stupidity. i mean, "my house" makes me cry, idk. but i'm not here to convince people who think fernando saunders sucks at bass
― american bradass (BradNelson), Saturday, 13 July 2019 14:41 (four years ago) link
The line that bugs me the most is "Marxist DA"...like, there would never be a Marxist district attorney...but if there was, they wouldn't be average...like Lou is claiming to be...ok, I get it now, it's all a rich tapestry.
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Saturday, 13 July 2019 14:46 (four years ago) link
and the weird of "New Sensations" (title track0) is my kind of weird.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 13 July 2019 14:57 (four years ago) link
Just occurred to me for the first time to wonder if it bugged Lou that Sterling finished his PhD. I suppose it might have, but so much stuff bugged him it would hard to single that one out unless he went on record about it.
― Ask Heavy Manners (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 13 July 2019 15:03 (four years ago) link
Man y’all are nitpicking some perfectly fine lyrics...(now excuse me while I do another Wikipedia-based fact check of where Lou was on a specific day in 1963)
― stan by me (morrisp), Saturday, 13 July 2019 15:35 (four years ago) link
Lou deserves to have his nits picked for being such a pompous ass from the mid 80s onwards.
― Orpheus Knutt (Tom D.), Saturday, 13 July 2019 15:37 (four years ago) link
The clunky, plainspoken earnestness of “My House” is what makes it so endearing, IMO. He’s abandoning all pretense of being “poetic” in his tribute to a poet.
― stan by me (morrisp), Saturday, 13 July 2019 15:54 (four years ago) link