8th November - Lou Reed's Transformer

Artist – Album: Lou Reed - Transformer

Released: 8^th November 1972

Sounds Like: Think outside the box

Pigeonholing – and I’m referring to the act of assigning something to a particular (usually restrictive) category, rather than the urban dictionary definition – is a sin that is difficult to resist in music. See someone in the street with black hair, black lips and black cloths, dark eyeliner and dark fingernail polish, and you’re likely to assume they listen to goth music (Wrong! They’re big fans of the Cheeky Girls).  Some artists are forever burdened with their earlier sounds: hence The Clash are still punks in the minds of some and The Charlatans (that’s The Charlatans UK if you’re from America) are forever dismissed as a poor man’s Stone Roses. And then there are those artists who are associated with a scene just because everyone else was doing it at the time – Radiohead aren’t Britpop, Melvins aren’t Grunge and Blink-182 were never Emo.

Similarly, Lou Reed may have dipped his toes into the pool of glam rock with Transformer, but he was no Marc Bolan. As typical of the time as ‘I’m So Free’ and ‘Vicious’ were, a fair portion of the tracks here (‘New York Telephone Conversation’ and ‘Goodnight Ladies’) seem to be performed by some sort of strange New York oompah band. Even the three best known tracks – ‘Perfect Day’, ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ and ‘Satellite of Love’ – are hard to categorise. ‘Andy’s Chest’, meanwhile, was recorded by Reed’s old band The Velvet Underground three years previously, and as such has the imminently unclassifiable sound of the majority of their output.

At the end of the day, there’s no need to pigeonhole (that is, neither limiting labelling nor the urban dictionary way). All that you really need to know is that this is another great album from the great man.

Albumaday... rating: 8/10

1.       Vicious – 2:55

2.       Andy’s Chest – 3:17

3.       Perfect Day – 3:43

4.       Hangin’ Round – 3:39

5.       Walk on the Wild Side – 4:12

6.       Make Up – 2:58

7.       Satellite of Love – 3:40

8.       Wagon Wheel – 3:19

9.       New York Telephone Conversation – 1:31

10.   I’m So Free – 3:07

11.   Goodnight Ladies – 4:19

Listen to ‘Satellite of Love’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FH2EgYq_NCY

Also released on the 8th November:
1971: Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin IV

10th Jan - Lou Reed's New York

Artist – Album: Lou Reed – New York

Released:  10^th January 1988

Sounds Like:  Scary tales of New York 

Lou Reed has racked up a substantial amount of albums throughout his career – no less than twenty-two solo studio albums adding to the five he managed with The Velvet Underground – and as many of those have been awful as have been awesome, so getting to grips with his back catalogue can be tricky. New York isn’t the best of the lot (it’s hard to look past The Velvet Underground & Nico or Transformer for that honour), but it’s hard to think of one that has so perfectly encapsulated what his music is about.

The album is fourteen urban poems, tackling problems both personal and global, and woven together to represent one complete discourse on life in New York and life in general. Reed may discuss politics, homelessness, AIDS and life choices in this selection, but he manages to avoid sounding preachy and the lyrics are so clearly carefully constructed and cleverly crafted that it is hard to think of a better wordsmith in this soft of territory. All of this is backed by just a guitar, bass and drums, as well as a few doo-da-doo’s, and this sparseness helps each track retain it’s clarity, while also maintaining a solid rock and roll ethos.

The liner notes for the album instruct the listener to sit through it all in one go, a seemingly unnecessary move in the times of LP’s and tapes, when skipping a track was as easy as shedding all of that bloody festive weight by mid-January. But in the world of today, with ipods, ipads and ipids (wait, is that right?) and your music usually set to shuffle, it’s the norm to just pick out your favourites and skip the rest. Don’t do that here. Lou demands it.

Albumaday... rating:   8/10

1.       Romeo Had Juliette – 3:09

2.       Halloween Parade – 3:33

3.       Dirty Blvd. – 3:29

4.       Endless Cycle – 4:01

5.       There Is No Time – 3:45

6.       Last Great American Whale – 3:42

7.       Beginning of a Great Adventure – 4:57

8.       Busload of Faith – 4:50

9.       Sick of You – 3:25

10.   Hold On – 3:24

11.   Good Evening Mr. Waldheim – 4:35

12.   Xmas in February – 2:55

13.   Strawman – 5:54

14.   Dime Store Mystery – 5:01

Listen to ‘Dirty Boulevard’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7z3TPwOT31g