Lou Reed

Here's something I wrote on Lou Reed, who is the man.

To understand Lou Reed, simply look at the album cover for “The Bells”.  Yes, take your eyes off this article for a second and look it up for there is no time to describe it here due to laziness.  Now you get it.  Lou Reed thinks that Lou Reed is the most special person in the world and nobody comes close (if you didn’t look up the cover, take a moment to reflect on your failings as a reader).  Even though he is a Jew according to the website Jew or Not Jew, Lou Reed does not have much a relationship to Judaism other than through his parents and his fantastic Jew-fro.  He has said his real god is rock and roll and his religion is playing the guitar really well.  In the beginning (1942), Lou Reed was born to middle class Jewish parents who thought their son had a bit of a homosexual leaning.  They sought to nourish their child by putting him through electroshock therapy when he was around 15 to “zap the gay out of him”.  This in turn led him to leave for New York City and straight into the arms of the Andy Warhol experience.  This is what future historians would refer to as ironic.  In the Factory, Lou was Andy’s darling and Reed has spoken about how the only place he would like to be was on Andy’s Chest.  He helped front the quintessential New York cool group, the Velvet Underground, whose first four albums launched a million musicians and a million more musical styles.  Everything from glam to punk to proto punk to glam punk to punk glam and proto punk glam comes from the Velvet Underground and Reed’s rock and roll poetry.  He sang of prostitutes, heroin, transsexuals, and issues not normally heard on the Top 40.  He left the band and forged his own successful solo career by changing his image every few years and yelling at anyone who dared critique him.  The only critic who Reed could tolerate was Lester Bangs, but even Bangs couldn’t slug it out with Reed half the time.  To truly understand the solo work of this illusive genius listen to the glorious glam of Transformer, the succulently sweetness of Coney Island Baby, the perfected punk of Street Hassle, the deranged domesticity of The Blue Mask, and the lusciously literate New York.  Luckily there is no silly alliteration in those albums.  The alliteration was payback for not looking up that album cover.  Today, Lou Reed is married to Laurie Anderson and recently was King Neptune at the Coney Island Mermaid Parade.   In typical Lou fashion, he didn’t acknowledge anybody and looked rather mad.  It was a perfect day.