Lou Reed: Transformer (1972)
More than almost any other artist, I have a real love/hate relationship with Lou Reed … and I’m probably not alone.
Oh, I love most everything Velvet Underground, a bunch of songs across Lou’s solo discography, and all of his late ‘80s comeback, New York, but I find just as much of his stuff unlistenable – and not just that inexplicable Metallica collaboration, Lulu, though I laughed my ass off watching apologists in both camps squirming to defend it.
So it’s entirely fitting that I feel the same, extreme emotions about Reed’s most celebrated solo LP, 1972’s Transformer, which is celebrating a half century today and will receive all the glowing, reverential retrospectives it richly deserves; it doesn’t need another one from me.
Produced by a then-white-hot David Bowie and Spider from Mars guitarist, Mick Ronson, Transformer took Lou away from his home (and greatest muse), New York City, and brought him to London Town, where Bowie endeavored to sprinkle some of that Ziggy-dust over Reed’s as-yet-unproven solo career.
Which he did (can anyone even remember Reed’s eponymous debut?), but it would have all been for naught without Lou’s incisive, wicked genius – plus he seemed to relish the opportunity to show these glamorous limeys, with their naive androgyny, what real sexual freedom looked and sounded like, N.Y.C.-style!
Cue all-time classics like “Walk on the Wild Side” and “Vicious” – boasting lyrics so iconic they almost overshadow two of the most instrumentally clever arrangements in rock’s entire canon – as well as poorer cousins like “Make Up” (nice tuba) and “New York Telephone Conversation.”
Another dud, “Andy’s Chest,” was an old Velvets reject (and it shows) about the attempt on Andy Warhol’s life, but “Satellite of Love” was definitely worth rescuing from demo purgatory and formed a perfect couple with “Perfect Day” – one of Lou’s most shockingly uncomplicated love songs.
And while I’ve got no bones to pick with refreshingly direct hard rockers such as “Hangin’ ‘Round” and “I’m so Free,” I feel nothing but indifference (better than antipathy, I guess) towards remaining cuts, “Wagon Wheel” and “Goodnight Ladies” (there’s that tuba again!).
That’s Transformer: uneven, polarizing, but a classic album nonetheless, and I don’t have to love (or hate) every song to acknowledge that, nor to give Lou Reed his due as a rock ‘n’ roll great who always kept things interesting, and rarely stopped inviting us to “Take a walk on the wild side …”
p.s. – I even included “Vicious” in my list of ‘Even More Cowbell Songs’ for Ultimate Classic Rock.
More Lou Reed: New York; w/ The Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground & Nico, White Light/White Heat, Loaded.
