 or  iTunes Price: $9.90 Genre: Rock Released: 1982 Customer Ratings (20 Ratings) |
Our ReviewCredit guitarist Robert Quine for upping the ante and giving Lou Reed the musical challenge of his life. With Quine's definitive attack underlining the words and the terror of Reed's best batch of tunes since Street Hassle, Reed finally delivered on the promise of his post–Velvet Underground career in a way that couldn't be denied. (Berlin, his other masterwork, has its detractors.) Bassist Fernando Saunders colors the bottom end, while Reed sing/speaks songs that range from beautiful ("My House") to paranoid ("Waves of Fear") to brutal ("The Gun") to poignant ("The Day John Kennedy Died"), never shirking from the emotional commitment necessary to put these songs across. "Women" is so simple that its complexity can be lost on a cursory listen. But these are songs that repay over repeated plays. "The Blue Mask," "Underneath the Bottle," and "The Heroine" all flow with a sense of poetry and rock 'n' roll. In 1982—at a time when it was debatable if the '60s crowd could find relevance in a new decade—Reed proved it could be done without compromise.Customer ReviewsYES (5 stars)Here, Reed finds a nearly perfect band to frame his songs, which seems to push him. Other guitarists tend to overwhelm Reed -- overwriting his guitar and taking over. To my mind, Robert Quine is the perfect second guitar -- forming guitar parts around Reed, not over him. Fernando Saunders is just sublime. A great recording. Lou Reed's Finest Moment (5 stars) This is, in my opinion, Lou Reed's greatest solo album. There is a complexity to the lyrics and music here that is unparalleled in any record I have ever heard. And I'm not talking about production, because this album was recorded live with the band and is starkly simple. The duel of Robert Quine and Lou Reed's guitars is beautiful and Fernando Saunders bass is unlike any you'll ever hear. To try and communicate the sound of this album I'd s i wouldn't say mellow (5 stars) There might be a couple of slower songs here, but even the less driving tunes can't really be called mellow, at least lyrically. And some of the songs are his most furious ever--Underneath the Bottle, The Blue Mask, Waves of Fear, The Gun--all of them blistering. I must have listened to this album a thousand times in the late eighties. It captures perfectly what it is like to feel as if you are on the bottom of the world. BiographyBorn: March 2, 1942 in Brooklyn, NYGenre: Rock Years Active: '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, '00s, '10s The career of Lou Reed defies capsule summarization. Like David Bowie (whom Reed directly inspired in many ways), he has made over his image many times, mutating from theatrical glam rocker to strung-out junkie to avant-garde noiseman to straight rock & roller to your average guy. Few would deny Reed's immense importance and considerable achievements. As has often been written, he expanded the vocabulary of rock & roll lyrics into the previously forbidden territory of kinky sex, drug use...
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