Scraping Genius Off The Wheel

LOU REED IS MORE METAL THAN YOU THINK

  • Gary Suarez
720

LOU REED IS MORE METAL THAN YOU THINKThe way metalheads describe him, Lou Reed is some sort of excavated relic from the Paleozoic era. Yes, I know you don’t like Lulu, but for fuck’s sake, the guy isn’t just some hobo Lars Ulrich found on the street begging for change and warning the world about Y2K. Reed’s the rock and roll animal, man, responsible for some of the most interesting and influential music of the 60s and 70s. Being publicly ignorant of his contributions to rock music doesn’t make Lulu‘s detractors cool; it makes them look narrow minded.

So, in order to prevent you from coming across like a complete bonehead, here are a few Lou Reed fun facts for metalheads…

  • Where the fuck do you think “glam” came from?

 

If you’re going to shit on Reed, you might as well throw out all your Kix, Mötley Crüe, Quiet Riot, and Twisted Sister records, along with everything else under that blanket in your glam metal shame closet. Reed’s responsible for one of the Top 3 most influential glam rock records of all time, 1972’s Transformer. Co-produced by David Bowie and his Spiders From Mars comrade Mick Ronson, the album’s impact at the time–as well as its continuing legacy–solidified Reed’s standing in the rock music world. None of those shitty re-thrash bands you can’t keep from fellating will ever release anything as good as Transformer. Give “Vicious” a listen while you’re burning your Poison t-shirts. Go on, I’ll wait.

 

  • SUNN O)))? More like SUNN LO)))U!

 

Long before bands like Boris and Sunn O))) turned your Limp Bizkit-lovin’ ass onto heavy drones, Reed had already put on the most high-profile guitar feedback record in the history of the music business–on a major label, no less! Comprised of four sixteen-minute pieces, 1975’s Metal Machine Music came with inscrutable liner notes and bad-ass sleeve art. Reed wasn’t new to drones, given some of his work with John Cale in their seminal rock band The Velvet Underground, but these were doozies that confounded everyone (include RCA Records) familiar with the several successful records that preceded it. Any Southern Lord obsessive ought to own this; it blows your black metal collection out of the water. It even had a locked groove!

 

  • Lou Reed gave Alice Cooper his throwaways.

 

Okay, that’s a little harsh, but it got your attention, I hope. In the 1970s, Reed played with a lot of different people, yet in 1973-1974 the rhythm section consisted of bassist Prakash John and drummer Pentti Glan. Both appeared on 1974’s Sally Can’t Dance and Reed’s two essential live records Rock N Roll Animal and Lou Reed Live, all three among his most acclaimed releases. John and Glan subsequently joined up with Alice Cooper beginning with 1975’s Welcome to My Nightmare and stayed for records including Lace and Whiskey and The Alice Cooper Show. (Oh yeah, and his first solo album featured contributions from both Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman of prog rock luminaries Yes, without whom Mastodon would never have existed.)

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not asking you to reassess your opinion of Lulu. Rather, I’m giving you a chance to recognize that Lou Reed is more than that guy who made that Metallica record you hate.

-GS

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