Lou Reed, reconsidered

Steven Hyden bids us reconsider Lulu — the critically maligned 2011 collaboration between Lou Reed and Metallica — “THE DEFINITIVE ALBUM OF 2020.”

"They're comin' round, Lou!"

Consulting my digital player of choice, I see I last heard Lulu the first week of February. That was 2020, and I still didn’t enjoy or “like” it. But that was nine months ago — nine months of this rough beast that still is 2020, and will be for at least the next seven weeks. Maybe some reconsideration is in order?

Way back in '11 I cheered news that Reed was in studio working with Metallica on his next album. In the week or two prior to release the studio rolled out preorder packages for various iterations of the album that could take up space in our collective Walls Of Plastic. The chichi “Deluxe Tube-Box and Poster” version appealed, as did the even chichier (and pricier) “Deluxe CD/Hardcover Book Set.” The consumer could even opt for both, at a one-time premium discount!

I am an easy mark for the rock and roll commodity fetish — I reached for my credit card...

"Wait'll I tell my wife!"

...then the first “single” was released on YouTube as a video.

I changed my purchase option to “CD only.” 

Nine years later, if, upon my next reconsideration, I should choose to opt into the fancier packages, both the Tube and Coffee-Table Book versions can be had for pennies on the dollar.

Coincidentally, Rhino Records has released a celebration of Lou Reed’s New York, the 1989 album that initially turned me on to LR. I hesitated. Rhino has opted for bloat, IMHO — the vinyl won’t receive any play from Yours Truly (though the older kid might give them a spin) and for my money the disc of early versions and rough edits could have been a limited-time digital download. But the remastering of the original album was HIGHLY desirable, as was the DVD of the The New York Album Live At The Théâtre St-Denis in Montreal. I did some scouting, and with perseverance found the whole shebang for just about half Rhino’s asking rate. This seemed right to me — I hit “Add To Cart.” And I’m glad I did.

New York receives, at a minimum, a once-a-year dust-off from me. The recent remastering is excellent — the sound separation better, and the compression entirely welcome (the '89 CD is, like most discs from that era, a touch too bright). The songs read as solidly as ever, with the singular exception of “Good Evening Mr. Waldheim” which plays like a Twitter rant. The live versions of the songs sound terrific, with audience noise pushed way to the back so that the disc plays like a single concert, similar to the Montreal DVD. And the DVD alone is enough to justify the purchase.

Still, that is a lot of shelf space...

And, yes, I kvetched about the “rough tracks” CD. But I’m glad I gave it a spin. The “work tape” tracks reveal some of Reed’s method — he gets particular musicians to run over a single line multiple times until he hears exactly what he wants to hear, and then that is the way it gets played in the final take. As for the “rough mix” tracks, they are exactly what you hear on the finished CD, minus backing vocals. I’ve given it one play, and will consign the disc to The Wall, reserving only “The Room” for my digital library.

David Fricke’s gatefold essay begins with mention of “The Room” (“‘I’ll play you this thing,’ Lou Reed said...”) then artfully unspools the man and the artist Reed was, at the particular time and place when he put down this particular record. 

That said, the most striking element of Fricke’s essay occurs early when he dubs “Romeo Had Juliet” — the killer opening track on New York — “a fire-escape love song crammed with urban apocalypse.”

Eyeeeeah... I mean who doesn’t want to pin down a song that caromes from shitty-little-tenancy to fire-escape to steaming-city-street? And yet . . . it is remarkable to me that Fricke seems to miss what Reed makes quite plain: much of what the listener hears being poetically rendered in Reed’s lyrics are the post-coital ruminations of a street thug who has just raped a girl.

There is always something about Lou Reed that the listener, no matter how attentive, never quite “gets” and certainly that is the case with me and Lulu. Hyden says, “A crucial mistake that many people made with initially engaging with Lulu ... is thinking of it as being as much of a Metallica record as a Lou Reed one.” Hyden gets close to the locus of my own disappointment, here. Reed took Metallica into the studio, then marched them through the usual Lou Reed paces until he got what he wanted to hear from them. To those of us with some appreciation for what Metallica typically does, it sounded like a bad Velvets covers band. And while I am not a Metallica fan, I expected differently.

But, hey — I am up for an exercise in reconsideration. At some point, and I’m not committing to when, I will take a deep breath and sit down with Lulu again. And if I remain unmoved, you won’t be hearing about it here.