Jimi Hendrix is blues multiplied.īut Lou Reed = Lou Reed. Bob Dylan is the quintessence and end product of a long line of poets and troubadours. The Rolling Stones, the Who, Cream, Led Zeppelin were all preeminent rhythm and blues minstrels, White Lads as Black Dads. The Beatles, however sublime and influential, were basically the greatest musical parody act, aping American R&B, rockabilly, rock ’n’ roll, and the Great American Songbook. Though many of his most popular peers were just as fertile or prolific, few can lay claim (with the exception, perhaps, of Brian Wilson in the ’60s) to inventing a specific type of rock music. From the Velvet Underground’s inglorious days in the 1960s, married to “Heroin” when the Beatles were still committing “Norwegian Wood”, on through his completely singular solo years, with commercial ups ( Transformer, Rock and Roll Animal), and artistic higher-ups ( The Blue Mask, Magic and Loss), Reed not only forged a steadily successful 50-plus-year career - impressive enough, yet still something achieved by others - but managed something more rare, the creation of a completely original style of rock ‘n’ roll: Lou Reed music. Besides the usual CBGB suspects, there were many lesser-knowns and relative unknowns (including at least two very eloquent pieces right here in PopMatters) speaking up for the Man for whom we all would’ve waited a lifetime.
upon his death back in October proved, Lou Reed spoke the language of many people worldwide. As the outpouring of appreciations, memorials, tributes, etc. He just seemed to speak a language I wanted hear, simply and effectively.Ĭlearly, I’m not the only one. As I spent several years listening to pretty much nothing else but the Velvet Underground and, even more, Reed’s solo work (a duration of which a friend said to me, “God, that must’ve been depressing”), I’ve felt closer to Reed than perhaps any other artist, musical or otherwise. Lou Reed was one of those stranger-artists whose life, health, and death interested and affected me greatly.
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