Rest in peace.

Made his mark.

Take A Walk On The DEAD Side

Total bummer.

Damn.
R.I.P.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkG9BKgDvNI

fuuuuuuuuck

Foreshadowing?

Liver. Fail.

And his mark made a million more. The definition of "stomping on the terra."

RIP

God damn, this fucking hurts.

Shit, this at least made me laugh. I needed that.

Damn.
Just, damn.
R.I.P.

Lou Reed came across as a unlikable, incorrigible pain in the ass and his output after the Velvet Underground was hugely inconsistent, even his accepted 'classic' Transformer is half unlistenable tripe, although I should say my own personal opinion is that Transformer is not his best solo record.

Much of the reverential bleating about 'Art', 'Experimentation', 'pushing music to the Limits', all present in the encomiums, has a strong whiff of bullshit about it. The Beatles pushed far more limits in music than the Velvet Underground ever did and in lyrical precociousness, Bob Dylan broke the ground there and was better in any case.

However Lou Reed was important.

Before there had been The Beach Boys, The Byrds and Creedance Clearwater Revival. Lou Reed's importance is as a personification of the shadow that blotted out the sun of the hippy dream. Whither prescient or accidental, Lou Reed's attitude, demeanor and image chimed perfectly with a historical, societal and artistic rupture. He represents, perhaps more potently than any other figure, the stygian wonderland of The Underground, the refuge of the castigated creatives, the outcasts and the weird.

What Lou Reed did was give white American music a credible rock n' roll mythos for the first ever time through a sort of 'mad, bad and dangerous to know' recycling of the Byronic hero and the Romantic half genius/half insane kapellmeister transposed from the dark Germanic woods at the foot of the Alps to dark alleyways at the foot of the towering skyscrapers of New York city.

It was that mythos that appealed and fired the fevered imaginations of so many others, although mostly, it has to be said, years later when music had already started to consume its own tail.

Obner needs a "like" button for that post, K.

The poet laureate of Obner.

thumbs up

ditto

Hats off to Obner for staying classy and not bringing up Lola.
*lulu*

Think our colons are all still empty from shitting on it.

Been seeing "The Blue Mask" referenced in the wave of interviews and articles about him today.

Never heard it. Any good? Or like most his solo work, hit or miss?

I've had it since shortly after it was released, and can honestly say that if I ever listened to it all the way through, not a note stayed with me. New York is the solo album I go to way more than anything else.

Blue Mask is pretty good. I agree that it's not particularly memorable, though. I'd rank it below Transformer, Coney Island Baby, and Berlin which are the only solo Lou albums I really care about. I mean I guess I care about Metal Machine Music in a different way.

I've mentioned this here before, but I kind of hate New York. I have problems with the lyrics and production on that that I can't get past.

The Kinks song? Don't see how that's relevant. It has been played/discussed way too much in general, though, so let's leave it alone!

On a side note, Lou Reed made this really awful album with Metallica called Lulu that horrified and amused a lot of people. It'll make for a funny footnote when people of the future read about Lou Reed. Hopefully they'll follow our lead and never actually listen to it.

Oh I was totally thinking of lulu. Awhoops.

Great post, Dr K. I enjoy Lou Reed's music, but helping usher in punk makes me love him even more.