'New York' I like, but there's a lot of topical references that I think a lot of people will hear and say, "HUH? Who's Morton Downey? Who's Bernard Goetz? What's he going on about?" I don't care much for the bombast of 'Rock & Roll Animal' but very much like 'Street Hassle' and 'The Blue Mask.' I don't hate any of their songs, but I sure don't think 'Who Loves The Sun' is up there with 'I Heard Her Call My Name', or for that matter, 'Loaded' up there with the first three albums, or even 'VU' and 'Another View.' 'Loaded' does have 'Sweet Jane' and 'Rock & Roll' which I think are among the best Velvet Underground songs.Īs for his solo albums, I like 'Transformer' though it's sort of hokey to me, and I found 'Berlin' to be boring, but haven't heard it in years and would like to give it another shot. Too bad there isn't more live stuff, and of higher audio quality too, but at least there is live stuff. My mother called me Monday afternoon and asked, "Are you in mourning?" It took me a second to realize she was referring to Lou Reed.Īs for his music, I like the Velvet Undergroud a lot. It doesn't surprise me he didn't make it to 2014. When I read a few months ago that Lou Reed had received a liver transplant, I figured he wasn't long for this world. Admittedly, I tend to *admire* from a distance more than outright like much of his final 3 decades of work.īut have you ever read Pierre (the Moby-Dick follow-up) or Clarel (Melville's late life epic poem)? Daring, but pretty abysmal. Herman Melville is my favorite writer, and a greater portion of his work is questionable or outright bad-but he was always searching and moving against the grain and his high points are enough to stake his greatness on. He was scheduled to talk about Edgar Allan Poe in NYC next week, which typifies him for me-following his muse, however unpopular or questionable (see the Metallica collaboration for an example of the latter). Here's a creative spirit who really just followed his own muse and interests and went against the grain a good portion of the time (most strikingly with the VU, obviously). I'm in the same boat, but for me Lou Reed's greatness is undimmed by this fact. > anything new by him in nearly a quarter-century.
> that sorrow is tempered by the fact that I haven't heard I'm very saddened by Lou's death, but it definitely seems like