Vale Lou Reed

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Singer for the Velvet Underground Lou Reed passed away in his native New York overnight. He was 71. Online there have been massive outpourings of grief in tribute to him, with many op-eds glowing in hyperbolic praise for his work.

I've never been a huge fan of his work, but I can appreciate a maverick when I see one. Lou Reed was definitely one of those. Lou followed his muse constantly, pushing himself, his critics and his audiences in new directions constantly throughout his career. He challenged and confused us music fans at every turn, and infuriated us on more than one occasion. I also believe he pushed the limits of rock music as an art-form in previously uncharted and, in some cases, very dangerous waters.

From the outset, as a member of the Andy Warhol-patronised Velvet Underground, his music pushed the boundaries of pop - it introduced avant garde elements such as drones, minimalism and noise, while Lou's lyrics dared to delve into areas and topics that were considered taboo.

Only Lou Reed could write a song about drugs that would dare to describe the time and place to make a drug deal, and the price, all in straigh-forward, to-the-point detail. And yet, as simple as he makes it sound, it does not sound appealing or attractive in the slightest, which is entirely the point.



Even songs that sound happy have deep dark undercurrents. While "Walk On The Wild Side" has a breezy, free-flowing feel, the lyrics about transvestites and gratuitous sex are anything but breezy.



And this is a common theme in his work, chronicalling the lives of the dispossessed and the marginalised in the seedy underbelly of major cities: the hustlers, junkies, pimp, prostitutes, drug dealers, the sexually experimental. He was never afraid to call it like he saw it, which often meant calling it for exactly what it was.



Even his collaboration with Metallica, the much-maligned and ill-conceived "Lulu", dealt with these dark issues, and again pushed audiences and critics to the limits of their sanity. It wasn't the first time he'd done that, mind you. He released the contractual-obligation LP "Metal Machine Music" in 1975, a wall-to-wall atonal noise-fest over 4 sides of a 65-minute double LP. While people like Lester Bangs reckoned it was the greatest record ever made, it annoyed the shit out of a hell of a lot of people. But this was purely his intention. He wanted to be confrontational to test the limits of an audience whom he percieved to be fleeting in their tastes.

The confrontational maverick type is all-but-gone these days, with only a few like Nick Cave still pushing the envelope. Lou was an original, to be sure. He will be missed. R.I.P.

May 2013 Mixtape

Well, well, welcome to the first day of Summer if you're in the northern hemisphere, or the first day of Winter in your south of the Equator. The first day of winter here today is quite mild but they tell us it won't last long.

Despite the doom and gloom predictions, here's a heap of great music compiled lovingly over the last month for you to get down and dirty with.

This month we start with a few leftovers from April, but in addition we feature:

• New tracks from Kurt Vile, Frank Turner, !!! (Chk Chk Chk), Kasey Musgrave, Thee Oh Sees, Holy Ghost, Atoms for Peace, Jinja Safari and more
• Memories of stars passed, in memoriam of Ray Manzarek (The Doors), Alvin Lee (Ten Years After), Daddy Mac (Kris Kross)
• Classics from Ray Charles, Counting Crows, Dave Dobbyn, Cold Chisel, Metallica, Elvis Costello, Wilco, Bob Dylan
• Aussie legends from Grinspoon, The Fauves, The Mavis's, Baby Animals, Kisschasy
• and some of the songs I'm debating voting for in the 20th Anniversary of Triple J's Hottest 100 by the likes of King Missile, US3, Neneh Cherry, Groove Armada, Lard, Ash, Supergrass and more...

as well as songs from all the artists we have featured on the blog during the month.

Cue it up, put it on random, turn it up and, most importantly,

ENJOY!

Lou Reed and Metallica

"Are you seriously going to write about this album now? After all this time?" I hear you ask.

Yes, I say. Due to the almost universal howl of condemnation that greeted the album upon release, it would have been hard to be as objective as I would have liked to be.

Metallica and Lou Reed have both had a long history of testing the patience of their respective fanbases. But I don't think fans of either artist were expecting this - a record blending the two extremes together in an avant garde context, over 2 cds and over 90 minutes of music in only 10 songs (the last one, "Junior Dad" towers in at over 19 minutes - longer than either act has released on their own).

What you end up with is a very tough record to listen to. And while it's no "Metal Machine Music" (Lou Reed's polarising 1975 double LP of wall-to wall sonic noise), I doubt there's been a record since that has pissed people off so violently. Almost overnight, it became an Internet Meme and the online outrage and vitriol lasted for weeks.

Part of - well, most of the problem really - is context. The audience has a lot of research to do before this record even begins to make sense.

Lou was inspired by the "Lulu" trilogy by German playwright Frank Wederkind . The plays revolve around a young female dancer who falls into poverty, violence and prostitution and ultimately lives for encounters with rich men and deviant sexuality. Lou has made a career of singing about freaks, junkies, hookers, trannies and other ostracised fringe dwellers. These plays fit in well with his previous repertoire. But really, who, aside from PhD Literature students has ever read the works of an early 20th century German avant garde playwright? And how many Metallica fans do you think are going to read Wederkind's source material to make sense of this collaboration?

Sure, Metallica have been inspired by classic literature before on songs like "One". But you didn't need to have read the novel to get the message. With "Lulu", one probably should, but from what I hear it's almost as gruesome and painful as Lou's off key groaning.

Back onto the point about context. How many people are fans of both Metallica and Lou Reed? I highly doubt there are many people whose musical tastes overlap the two artists.

Musically, Metallica swoop, lurch, stagger and stumble woozily, like an inebriated Yeti who has just been hit on one eye with a champagne bottle, behind Lou Reed's obviously deranged and deeply emotive poetry. He reminds me of a street-corner rambler, standing on a milk crate warning of the impending demise of mankind. He rants along with a super heavy barrage of noise behind him. The two don't seem to ever line up in a purely musical sense - it almost feels as though the awkward juxtaposition of the two styles was as deliberate as it sounds accidental.

If nothing else, this project is ambitious. I, for one, do not begrudge either Metallica or Lou Reed their ambitions. In fact I applaud them, because without some ambition, art will not advance and it won't develop either. But there's a difference between ambition and execution. All the ambition in the world isn't going to make this album any more listenable.

Lou Reed has even gone on to say that this record is for "literate" people. Fair enough, I suppose. However, placing the premise and the concept of your artwork above and beyond the grasp of your core fan base is not a smart move either, as it smacks of arrogance. The minute you position yourselves above your audience or make them feel like lesser people is the moment you will be cut down to size. This may go a long way to explaining why there was much backlash. Music fans don't like being made to feel stupid.

Doing something different is part of every artists nature. The problem is when you have an audience that is not prepared to - or unable to, for some reason - follow you and to understand what you are trying to achieve. Also, with such ugly subject matter serving as inspiration, it would be very difficult to come out with something that wasn't off-putting or disagreeable with many people. It's hard to see this project as a winning situation for anyone except the artists themselves and their artistic inclinations.

My view? Good on them for having a go and trying something different, for "spreading their wings" as James Hetfield put it in an interview with Dmitri Erlich in Interview Magazine. But all in all, "Lulu" kind of ends up feeling like this Lynda Benglin abstract piece: You stand back, look at it and go "ok, now that we've done it, and it exists, what the hell is it and what are we supposed to do with it?"