Lou Reed - Transformer
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CD Details
Artist: Lou ReedBrand: REED,LOU
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Extra tracks, Original recording remastered
CD Release Date: 2002-10-22
Music Label: RCA
Product features:
- Lou Reed - Transformer (incl. 2 Former Unreleased Bonus
- Vicious
- Andy's Chest
- Perfect Day
- Hangin' 'Round
- Walk On The Wild Side
- Make Up
- Satellite Of Love
- Wagon Wheel
- New York Telephone Conversation
- I'm So Free
- Goodnight Ladies
- Hangin' 'Round (Acoustic Demo)
- Perfect Day (Acoustic Demo)
Music reviews of Transformer
Music Review: Sweet Lou rides Ziggy's coat tails to the big time
Rating: 2 Stars
It's no secret that Lou Reed was pining for commercial success and recognition long before this album was released. After the failure of the first two Velvet Underground albums to make an impact on a commercially and monetarily rewarding level, Reed softened his touch with the self titled third album. This meant that much of what was important about the Velvet Underground was thrown out, but there was still solid songwriting. Louis was still writing quality songs that he would have probably written anyway, they were just arranged and performed in a more user friendly way due to the absence of John Cale and Reed's desire for commercial success. He had not yet pandered to popular taste in a blatant effort to have a hit single and album and was at this time still only willing to meet the mainstream halfway. By the final VU album, Loaded, he had dropped this proviso and was now fully prepared to write commercial music to appeal radio stations and the average rock fan circa 1970. This is why Loaded is easily the weakest of the VU albums. What was unfortunate was that even Louis was fully prepared to sell out on the audience, the radio station, and the record label's terms, the first two still weren't buying. That changed in 1972 when Louis was taken under the boney wing of David Bowie, in the prime of his rock stardom at the time. Louis finally had the right connection, the right contact, and maybe most importantly, a scene to pander to, to bow, to sell out to. Unlike Frank, he didn't do it his way.
Bands such as the Kinks for example, who after having already tasted success and understanding the formula by which to maintain it, nonethless turned their backs on it in pursuit of more serious, intelligent songwriting and as a result made the best albums of their career (though certainly far from the most comercially successful). Radiohead achieved success on their own terms. They made the music they wanted to make and it happened that people really responded to it. Unlike these bands, Louis created music to fit with a ready made audience, the short lived Glam rock fad of the early 1970's spearheaded by Bowie. Without Bowie's patronage, I doubt very seriously that this album would have had the same impact. Many reviews at the time mentioned Bowie and Ronson as much if not more than Lou Reed. This of course has to do with Bowie's celebrity, always much greater than Reed's, but also for the more legitimate reason that Ronson's touch is all over this record.
Lou's bisexuality has been well documented, although he has at times lied about this, preferring to pretend his homosexual relationships never existed which actually makes him seem even more of a contrived, fradulent hack on this particular album. I have nothing against homosexuals, but this album has gay themes running throughout it that are both tiresome and seem insincere. The gay image, Lou in make up, Lou with black nail polish, Lou singing about make up, were all designed to cater to Bowie's glam rock audience. Aside from that, excessive themes of gayness are just boring. Imagine making an album in which you referred to various aspects of your skin color throughout. It's equally daft and tedious.
The songs themselves are mostly weak and uninpisring. The vocals are perhaps the worst in Reed's career and that's really saying something. He seems to be going out of his way to sound camp on most of these tracks, which becomes annoying and embarrassing. Of course the hit, Lou's only one, "Walk on The Wild Side" is a fan favorite. In the catalogue of his work, it is not only not the best of his songs, it's actually not even good. It's poor. It's a second rate version of what Reed did much more effectively with the Velvets, observationalist songwriting. The same formula is here, but unlike songs with the Velvets or "Chelsea Girls" from Nico's first album, "Wild Side" is musically weak and obviously trying to hard to paint an explicit picture of the gay, junkie, drag queen scene Reed ecountered in his Warhol days. It is simply second rate compared to an observationalist song such as "Chelsea Girls" or the Velvet Underground's "Run Run Run", reinforcing my personal view that by the age of 30 Reed has already become a parody of himself. And not even a good one.
"Make Up" is probably the most embarrassing song on here. The most blatant effort to appeal to the audience Bowie has procurred for him.
"Hangin' Round" is almost as embarrassing. It's lyrically inane, but add the peculiar irony that Lou in his supposed wisdom and maturity is looking down his nose at the people doing the things he put down years ago. Given his speed addiction at the time (documented in Victor Bockris' Transformer biography) and penchant for simulating shooting up on stage, this track becomes laughable.
"Andy's Chest" and "Satellite of Love" are recycled songs from the Velvet era that that band had never released. This is something Reed did throughout the 70's and these like most, are superior in their original Velvet form. Seek those early versions out.
"Vicious" blithely bounces around until it wears itself out, ultimately going nowhere. This is probably the best example of Reed trying to sound camp and looking instead like an a$$ clown of the highest order.
"Perfect Day" is the one highlight on here. I would advise fans to skip this album and instead pick up a compilation that will treat you to this and "Satellite Of Love" although unfortunately "Wild Side" will probably come included in the package.
In the aftermath of this release, Reed attempted to undo the damage this album had done to his credibilty by releasing the masterful "Berlin". This album though not on the level of the Velvet's musically, was his finest creation in terms of lyrics at the time (maybe still is). It was a rare occasion when the "story" form of a concept album succeeded. But not comercially. Now that Reed had a ready made audience (compliments of Bowie) he perhaps he felt he could turn them on to the music he really beleived in, the music he really wanted to make. He was wrong. "Berlin" was largely condemned by both fans and critics alike and what followed, "Sally Can't Dance", an album that restored Reed to commercial prominence again causing him to quip (and I paraphrase) "This is great. The worse I am, the more it sells. Maybe if I'm not on the next one at all, it will reach number one". This was the sad state of Reed's commercial success. He still has acolytes due to "Transformer", who I'm willing to wager either don't know or can't stand his serious albums and he is forever obliged to play songs like "Wild Side" to expectant audiences. He built his house of fortune with straw and it was no surprise at all when it went up in flames.
Description of Transformer
Lou Reed Transformer 1. Vicious 2. Andy¦s Chest 3. Perfect Day 4. Hangin Round 5. Walk On The Wild Side 6. Make Up 7. Satellite Of Love 8. Wagon Wheel 9. New York Telephone Conversation 10. I¦m So Free 11. Goodnight Ladies 12. HanThis sophomore release by the Velvet Underground cofounder has long been hailed as one of the key touchstones of the punk and alternative eras that followed it. Reinforcing the literary adage to "write what you know," Reed paints an alternately detached/debauched portrait of the drag-and-drugs-infused underground of Warhol's New York, a place, time, and mindset so compelling it has largely overshadowed the rest of the singer-songwriter's mercurial career. That the album would also give Reed an unlikely Top 20 pop hit via the teasing, twisted sexuality of "Walk on the Wild Side" is but one of its deep, rewarding ironies. Indeed, as produced by David Bowie and guitarist and cohort Mick Ronson at the height of their own Ziggy Stardust fame, Reed's songs are cast in a seductive cabaret setting that's more Jacques Brel than Lower East Side. This 30th-anniversary edition features two unreleased acoustic demos ("Hangin' 'Round," "Perfect Day"), a vintage radio spot by announcer and word-jazz cult fave Ken Nordine, and a new illustrated booklet and perceptive essay by Michael Hill. --Jerry McCulley
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