Lou Reed: Walking on the Wild Side

As most people probably have heard by now, Lou Reed died on October 27, at the age of 71. His unique, monotone voice and his lyrics about outcasts, drug addicts and others on the fringes of society made him one of the most important and influential artists of his day, though commercial success mostly eluded him. There was a time many years ago when the only song of his I knew was his 1972 hit "Walk on the Wild Side", which used as the closing track on the original version of my compilation A Generation Lost In Space - Rock Classics of the Psychedelic Era that I put together in college. It wasn't until many years later that I borrowed the Velvet Underground boxed set from someone and had the chance to listen to all of their music, eventually acquiring their debut and a selection of other tracks. The Velvet Underground, of course, were the seminal 1960s band that Reed was the chief songwriter and primary vocalist for. The group was a commercial failure but went on to become incredibly influential, with their debut album The Velvet Underground and Nico now being regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time, and their other three albums before Reed's departure being almost as highly rated. It didn't take much listening for me to appreciate the band's originality and the high quality of Reed's writing. As for his solo career, I still can't claim to heard many of his songs other than "Walk on the Wild Side", but I recently acquired The Very Best of Lou Reed and so have made a start at familiarizing myself with his post-VU work. Still, the following selection of songs is necessarily heavily slanted towards Reed's VU songs, because they are what I know best. I also stuck to songs Reed wrote on his own, which meant leaving out songs like the VU's "Sunday Morning", which he co-wrote with John Cale. [Update: Having had the opportunity to listen to a little more of Reed's solo work, I've added a few songs to the list.]

Songs by Lou Reed (1942-2013)
I'm Waiting for the Man
Run Run Run
All Tomorrow's Parties (vocals: Nico)
Heroin
White Light/White Heat
I Heard Her Call My Name
What Goes On
Pale Blue Eyes
Beginning to See the Light
Sweet Jane
Rock & Roll
Walk on the Wild Side
Satellite of Love
Vicious
Caroline Says (II)
Coney Island Baby
Rock and Roll Heart
Street Hassle
The Blue Mask
Romeo Had Juliette
Dirty Blvd.
Perfect Day (vocals: Lou Reed and many other artists)

Music News Brief: New Albums from Sting and Paul McCartney

In the past few weeks, two of my all-time favorite singer-songwriters have released new studio albums of original songs. In late September, Sting released The Last Ship, his first new album since 2003 to be made up entirely of original material. The songs were apparently composed for a play of the same name that Sting wrote (the play is supposed to debut on Broadway next year). The play is said to have been inspired in part by Sting's childhood in Newcastle, England, and by his earlier album The Soul Cages. Also, in the past few days, Paul McCartney released his first new album of original material since 2007, entitled, ahem, New. He has been fairly active in promoting it, with a release party performance being broadcast by Yahoo! just last night. While I haven't gotten these albums yet, I intend to do so in the near future, and eventually I hope to review them properly. I did listen to The Last Ship once online, which was enough to hear that there is a definite relationship to The Soul Cages (one song even mentions "the soul cages"). Since the songs were written for a play, there is a particular emphasis on the lyrics, which in places are often spoken as much as sung. Though the result is material that seems less immediate than his work with the Police or even some of his earlier solo material, it seemed to be up to his usual high standards, and he didn't neglect to include some good musical hooks. Certainly it struck me as being worth repeated listening. As for McCartney, I've only listened to two songs from New, the title track and another song called "Queenie Eye", and both sounded excellent. If they are a fair indication of the quality of the album, Paul will have managed to keep up his streak of good to great studio albums that he's been on since Flaming Pie way back in 1997.