109. Lou Reed, "Transformer"

 

Before we get started on today's album, I have to let you know that this blog will be on hiatus next week and part of the week after that.  There's no easy way to say this, so I'm just going to come right out and say it:

I'm going to Peru.

I've never been a huge traveler.  My mother was obsessed with travel and was always off to Thailand or France or Guatemala.  Growing up with a chaotic and unpredictable mother I think left me wanting a sense of order and stability in my life, so I was never the backpack-through-Europe type.  My wife is from Ireland so I've gone to Europe a number of times since I've met her and I've greatly enjoyed those trips, but it never would have occurred to me to go to Peru, which seems like a fine country but is just one I never really think about, except that one of my relatives who is a university Spanish professor has been in Lima since January doing some kind of research or something, I'm not 100% sure, with his whole family and they invited us down and we said what the hell, let's go, it's not sure expensive and we'll be with a guy who speaks Spanish like, really well.  

So on Monday me and my wife and child will be taking a plane to Peru.  If you know my socials then I'm sure you'll see updates there and whatever and the upshot for this project is I'm not going to be listening to albums every day.  So I'll see you back here probably Thursday, August 11.

On to this album, the second solo album of Lou Reed's post-Velvet Underground career, after an eponymous first album crashed and burned.  I am a huge fan of the Velvet Underground so you might be expecting me to talk about how much I love this album too so here comes a surprise: I'm kind of meh about the whole thing.

It opens promisingly enough with "Vicious," a song that could have been a Velvets song (and, like a lot of this album, was most likely written for that band).  It's got that kind of prototypical Velvets song, with rhythmic guitar, a catchy melody, and Reed's deadpan vocals.  But something's up here, right off the bat; there are some guitar squeals and other sounds you don't normally associate with the Velvets sound.  As it turns out, this album was produced by David Bowie and his guitarist, Mick Ronson, and they bring a bit more glam to the proceedings, as you might expect.

Let's cut right to the chase here: this is the album with "Walk on the Wild Side," the only thing Reed has ever has approximating a hit.  It went to number 16 in the US (and, interestingly, to number 13 in Ireland, not noted for its progressive views in 1973).  The song, as you're surely aware, is a tale of the various characters who were part of the scene around Andy Warhol's Factory, and features discussions of trans people, oral sex, and drug use, all taboo topics even in 1972.

The album also contains "Perfect Day," which has been covered a number of times and was believed to be about heroin addiction, although Reed stridently denied this take.  There's also "Satellite of Love," truly a pretty song, with Bowie's background vocals, and "Wagon Wheel," which, next to "Vicious," might be my favorite song on the album.

The clunkers are really, really clunky.  "New York Telephone Conversation" is like a children's song or something, I'm not really sure but it's not great.  "Make Up" just kind of limps along.  And so forth.

So I glanced ahead and we've got some really good stuff coming up!  Can't wait to see you again.

Is this album in my personal Top 500? I don't think so.