Tag Archives: Lou Reed

FEEDBACK

“Most of you won’t like this, and I don’t blame you at all” – Lou Reed, cover notes to Metal Machine Music, released July 1975 “An appalling rip-off” – Critic William Howard in the Boston Globe, 1975 “Worst album by a human being” – Rolling Stone 1975 end-of-year poll “Anybody who got off on The […]

1974 COUNTDOWN | #15 — #11

#15 LOU REED — ROCK ‘N’ ROLL ANIMAL Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner on guitars supercharge this live Lou Reed classic. Drawing heavily on his Velvet Underground period, but in updated arrangements, the song-list is user friendly but never cuddly. The version of “Heroin” is scarifying and “Lady Day” despairing. But at other times the […]

1974 COUNTDOWN | #69 — #65

#69 LOU REED — SALLY CAN’T DANCE Eternally suspicious of, well, everything actually, Lou Reed was not exactly overjoyed by the unexpected success of Sally Can’t Dance. His acidic comment ran thusly: “It seems like the less I’m involved with a record, the bigger a hit it becomes. If I weren’t on the record at […]

1973 COUNTDOWN: #50—41

50  RINGO STARR — RINGO Forget “Now and Then”, this was the last Beatles record. It has songs by John, Paul, George, and of course Ringo. They are all alive, and all play and sing. As do guests including Harry Nilsson, Marc Bolan and members of The Band. Good songs, great atmosphere, and Ringo’s amiable vocals […]

1972 COUNTDOWN: #20 — 16

20  ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND — EAT A PEACH Simultaneously a tribute and a stop-gap after the untimely death of Duane Allman, Eat A Peach is slightly schizoid. A big double album, it includes three unreleased studio tracks featuring Duane, three live tracks from the Fillmore concerts, and three new studio songs without Duane. Yet the […]

1970 COUNTDOWN | NUMBER 6

6. VELVET UNDERGROUND — Loaded The idea of a polished, commercial VU record seems an oxymoron. But Loaded is both. It may not have been a chart success at the time, but over the years Loaded has gained status and regard in critical circles; Rolling Stone’s list of the best 500 albums of all time […]

BLUE VELVETS

One of the albums featured in 10 Terrific Album Covers – Part 2 was Live MCMXCIII by The Velvet Underground. At the time I was a trifle dismissive. Having the double CD did not deter me from snapping up this 4 LP live set on beautiful blue vinyl, apparently a ‘Black Friday’ release from 2014. Haven’t […]

THE VINYL CONNECTION ANNUAL REPORT

It’s a little over a year since Vinyl Connection started adding alphabet clumps to the swirling word-clouds of the blogsphere. Fifty-three weekly posts of 1,000 words (give or take), roughly the same again of Cover Art specimens, plus a few odds and sods along the way. In these past twelve months, VC has attracted ten dozen […]

HOW DO YOU THINK IT FEELS

1 The last time I recall pulling out a Lou Reed album was to refresh my memory of Rock n Roll Animal for one of a series of articles on the joys of ‘live’ albums. I didn’t actually need to play it again –  it’s an album whose slashes and strokes are burned into my […]

MAGIC & LOSS [COVERART #19]

“Lou Reed” [RCA 1972] “Magic & Loss” [Sire 1992] Lou Reed [March 2 1942 – October 27 2013] * (Reflective piece here)

BACK LIVE

Having already offered two pieces on the joys of ‘live’ albums*, it would probably be sensible to leave that topic alone for a while. But I re-acquainted myself with so many terrific recordings while writing those posts that I just had to bring out those that didn’t quite make the first two ‘Live In Your […]