R.I.P. Lou Reed

[The Man]

Well that's my day ruined :(

Lou Reed, Velvet Underground Leader and Rock Pioneer, Dead at 71 | Music News | Rolling Stone (http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/lou-reed-velvet-underground-leader-and-rock-pioneer-dead-at-71-20131027)

[Calliope]

It's a pretty widely-felt loss, all right. I feel very sad for Laurie Anderson.

[Shorty]

It's a shame he's gone now, but it looks like he's been on the decline for a few years. I remember the first time I heard him sing "Tranquilize" with The Killers and thought about how old and fragile he sounded then and that was years ago.

Here's a nice timeline of his career through photos. (http://www.rollingstone.com/music/pictures/lou-reed-through-the-years-20120302)

[The Man]

I'm still processing this news. It's surreal to go back to The Velvet Underground and Nico and think that three-fifths of the people that performed on it are dead now. I guess I kind of always subconsciously thought that Lou Reed was too cool to die. He's one of those people I never wanted to read an obituary for (Keith Richards, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, and Neil Young are in the same category).

It's probably impossible to overstate how influential Reed's music was. The Velvet Underground are almost certainly the most influential American rock band of the last 50 years; Brian Eno's famous quip that only 30,000 people initially bought their first LP, but every one of them formed a band seems pretty close to the truth. One of the thing that still staggers today when listening to their music, beyond how modern it still sounds, is how diverse the band's range was. They were just as fine doing country-rock as avant-garde freakouts, just as accomplished at ballads as they were at noisy jams.

A strong case could be made that the first two albums were just as shaped by Cale as they were by Reed (and it's not worth dismissing Nico's musical ability, either; her solo LPs, particularly after she got full creative control over her music, demonstrated that she had just as keen a musical mind as Reed and Cale), but the band bounced back wonderfully after Cale's departure with two additional fantastic completed LPs and a wealth of excellent material that didn't get released until long after the band's demise. The box set Peel Slowly and See is really essential listening for anyone even remotely interested in the history of rock music, even with the first disc being taken up largely by multiple takes of acoustic demos of six of the band's songs. The band's live material is also well worth an investigation; 1969 Live is deservingly regarded as a classic, and the bootleg box set Caught Between the Twisted Stars is well worth tracking down as well.

Reed's solo career is quite a bit patchier than the Velvet Underground's, who didn't make a bad recording while he was in the band, but there are some definite high points that demand investigation. Transformer, with his biggest hit "Walk on the Wild Side", is definitely worth a listen, but better still are Berlin, a conceptual rock opera encompassing drug addiction, domestic violence, prostitution, suicide, and other issues, and New York, a late '80s rant about the dismal state of America during the age of Reagan, are both essential listening. Also essential are Reed's recordings with his late guitarist Robert Quine (who committed suicide after his wife's death), including The Blue Mask and Live in Italy.

I think we're long past the point where a rock band can change the shape of the industry as thoroughly as the Velvet Underground transformed it. The music business is too fractured and there is no way for a single artist to influence such a wide strata of artists. R.E.M., U2, Roxy Music, Brian Eno, the Stooges, the Sex Pistols, the New York Dolls, Nirvana, Galaxie 500, Pere Ubu, the Pretenders, the Verve, Television, Sonic Youth, Kraftwerk, David Bowie, Can, Joy Division, Hüsker Dü, Jane's Addiction, Big Star, Pussy Galore, Silver Apples, Slowdive, My Bloody Valentine, Pixies, Suicide, the Cure, the Fall, Simple Minds, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor are just a handful of the artists that were influenced by the Velvet Underground.

A lot of people at this forum have probably never heard Reed's music, or at least not more than "Walk on the Wild Side" and maybe "Perfect Day". If you're one of them and are even remotely interested in rock music, you owe it yourself to change that.

[The Man]

Neil Gaiman interviewed Reed before he was particularly famous. Here (http://neilgaiman.com/p/Cool_Stuff/Interviews/Waiting_for_the_Man_-_Lou_Reed) is the interview.

This obituary by Sasha Frere-Jones (http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sashafrerejones/2013/10/postscript-lou-reed-obit.html) is one of the better ones I've read today.

[Shorty]

Article - In memory of Lou Reed, watch his short film 'Red Shirley' (http://www.indiewire.com/article/watch-lou-reeds-short-film-red-shirley)

[The Man]

copypasta from /mu/:


Without Lou Reed, we wouldn't have punk rock. We wouldn't have The Sex Pistols, Black Flag, The Clash, Television, Dead Kennedys, or Devo.

Without punk rock, we wouldn't have post-punk. We wouldn't have Joy Division, The Cure, The Smiths, This Heat, Talking Heads, Wire, Gang of Four, Nick Cave, The Feelies, or Swans.

Without post-punk, we wouldn't have alternative rock as it is today. We wouldn't have Pixies, Radiohead, Nirvana, Pavement, R.E.M, The Replacements, Nine Inch Nails, Cocteau Twins, or Weezer.

Without alternative rock, you wouldn't have most indie rock as it is today. You wouldn't have Modest Mouse, Built to Spill, Pavement, The Strokes, Yo La Tengo, The Dismemberment Plan, Arctic Monkeys, Interpol, Deerhunter, or TV on the Radio.

Without Lou Reed, we wouldn't have noise rock. We wouldn't have Sonic Youth, Big Black, The Jesus Lizard, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Fugazi, Boris, or Dinosaur Jr.

Without noise rock, we wouldn't have shoegaze. We wouldn't have My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Slowdive, Galaxie 500, Flying Saucer Attack, or Have a Nice Life.

This is the legacy Lou left behind.
sums it up pretty well

[Psychotic]

A damn shame. Very talented musician and as Freed says, definitely a huge influence in the rock genre.