[DavidMahler]

I don't deny the influence Reed had, I just feel the influence he had was almost entirely negative.

 

[gratefulshrink]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DavidMahler /img/forum/go_quote.gif I own every VU album, and 6 bootlegs by them and 7 Lou Reed solo CDs. The thing is though, I own plenty of CDs of artists I despise.

Do you collect music that you like, as well?

For an artist that you say you don't like, you certainly do own a lot of his music. Is it that you kept thinking you might like him, so you kept trying, album after album? Or are you just goofing with us?

 

[PhaedrusX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DavidMahler /img/forum/go_quote.gif I don't deny the influence Reed had...

well actually, you kinda did.

Quote:

...I just feel the influence he had was almost entirely negative.

i respect the fact that everyone has their own likes and dislikes regarding various artists, but here i think your personal taste is clouding any semblance of objectivity and common knowledge.

i'd place Reed and the Velvet Underground in the same category as Kerouac and Burroughs. you may not "get" them, or particularly like their subject matter or style, or even their technical prowess (Truman Capote, after hearing that Kerouac had finished his novel "On the Road" in two weeks quipped, "That's not writing...that's typing.") but as has been mentioned, among the "knowledgeable" (as opposed to the "opinionated"), their influence is pretty well-documented and supported.

the VU, like the beat writers, also tapped into new territory and broke some ground which allowed others to follow and further cultivate it. i'm really not sure how anybody could interpret this as negative.

*for negative influences: see Milli Vanilli and Hitler.

 

[DavidMahler]

my taste in music is based upon the musical talents of the artist. I'm not into lyrics much, Lou Reed offers nothing to me. When i was 12 i bought all the VU albums, cause I liked the profound sound of their music and lyrics. But as i got older it just sounds like garbage. I still think Candy Says is a well thought out song.

But if you see his Youtube concert with Pavorotti on "Perfect Day" or listen to "Like a Possum" from his recent years............its really really hard to figure out why this man has a devoted following.

I lump Lou Reed with Philip Glass and Jackson Pollock. People who are critically acclaimed in their field but offer nothing much more than conception. They conceive great ideas, but do not have the talents to bring anything artistic to the table.

As far as rock goes......my taste is more for the Beatles, Zeppelin, Lennon, Steely Dan, Joni Mithcell, Jeff Buckley, Brian Wilson, Yes......i feel they bring interesting music ideas to the table, not just lyrics. If I want to hear great lyrics, i skip lou reed and read so Goethe or Dante.

Hearing about some guy waiting for his man, with 26 dollars in his hand, just doesnt interest me.....maybe if i did drugs I'd relate.

Funnily enough, I'm a New Yorker, and i know Reed is a very New York kinda dude. I just don't relate. His singing is too awful, his guitar playing is too absurd, and his songs show to be silly...."I've been told that you've been bold with Harry Mark and John"

It's not a winning combo for me. That's not to say that if you put out 30 albums you cant write a few good songs. But that doesnt make you deserving.

Lastly, I refer you to a comment I heard Iggy Pop say once in an interview: "When we all heard Velvet Underground for the first time in the late 60s, all these kids who wanted to have a rock and roll band, but didn't think they had the talent, realized that they could still do it.....here was this guy who couldn't sing, singing about stuff that we could relate to, and this guy that couldn't play guitar with a drummer that couldnt even keep a beat, rocking out louder than anyone at the time....we knew that if this guy could do it, then we could too".......this comment is paraphrased from a TV interview I saw years ago.

I don't deny Reed's influence. But his influence was negative to me in the sense that he allowed nonmusicians to believe themselves musicians........he lowered that bar. And music has not been the same since.

As far as linking him with the beat nicks.......thats fine, I agree, thats really what he is............but being a great lyricist (its debatable to that he is one) doesnt make you a great songwriter, only if your true merit of a song is its lyrical content can that be true.

 

[VicAjax]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DavidMahler /img/forum/go_quote.gif I lump Lou Reed with Philip Glass and Jackson Pollock. People who are critically acclaimed in their field but offer nothing much more than conception. They conceive great ideas, but do not have the talents to bring anything artistic to the table.

this statement basically lands you square in the "i may not know much about art, but i know what i like" camp.

to say that Jackson Pollock brought nothing artistic to the table is sort of equivalent to the church excommunicating Galileo.

you may not like it, but the opinion that Pollock isn't art sort of died in the 50s.

Quote:

As far as rock goes......my taste is more for the Beatles, Zeppelin, Lennon, Steely Dan, Joni Mithcell, Jeff Buckley, Brian Wilson, Yes......i feel they bring interesting music ideas to the table, not just lyrics. If I want to hear great lyrics, i skip lou reed and read so Goethe or Dante.

i'm a big fan of many of these artists myself, but to declare your fondness for them while excoriating the artistic merit of the Velvet Underground is to say that you just don't like music that's not pleasantly melodic and easy to listen to.

Quote:

Hearing about some guy waiting for his man, with 26 dollars in his hand, just doesnt interest me.....maybe if i did drugs I'd relate. Funnily enough, I'm a New Yorker, and i know Reed is a very New York kinda dude. I just don't relate. His singing is too awful, his guitar playing is too absurd, and his songs show to be silly...."I've been told that you've been bold with Harry Mark and John" It's not a winning combo for me. That's not to say that if you put out 30 albums you cant write a few good songs. But that doesnt make you deserving. Lastly, I refer you to a comment I heard Iggy Pop say once in an interview: "When we all heard Velvet Underground for the first time in the late 60s, all these kids who wanted to have a rock and roll band, but didn't think they had the talent, realized that they could still do it.....here was this guy who couldn't sing, singing about stuff that we could relate to, and this guy that couldn't play guitar with a drummer that couldnt even keep a beat, rocking out louder than anyone at the time....we knew that if this guy could do it, then we could too".......this comment is paraphrased from a TV interview I saw years ago. I don't deny Reed's influence. But his influence was negative to me in the sense that he allowed nonmusicians to believe themselves musicians........he lowered that bar. And music has not been the same since.

that's just asinine (and baseless). Brian Eno? David Bowie? David Byrne? non-musicians?

please name for me a protege of the Velvet Underground that exemplifies this lowered artistic bar of music?

Quote:

As far as linking him with the beat nicks.......thats fine, I agree, thats really what he is............but being a great lyricist (its debatable to that he is one) doesnt make you a great songwriter, only if your true merit of a song is its lyrical content can that be true.

you're the only one who's limiting his artistic ability to that of a lyricist. in fact, VU was one of the first to adopt the styles of modern classical avant garde to rock.

you obviously don't like it, because it makes your ears hurt and you're more comfortable with the status quo. however, that distaste does not nullify the huge artistic contribution of Lou Reed and of the Velvets.

 

[PhaedrusX]

interesting. grouping the VU with Philip Glass and Jackson Pollock makes sense to me. i like all those artists because of their minimalism, the sparsity of their presentation. to me, music and art has always been an emotional and visceral experience, very in the moment, and less about the talent on display.

i also believe conception is 90% of the creative process, and is the real source of art. there are countless painters and musicians out there with talent, but very few with the vision to create something new. so we will agree to disagree there.

i'd heard the Iggy Pop quote before. of course, it's true what he said, and it seems to encompass what great rock is all about. so to say that Lou Reed was responsible for allowing non-musicians to believe they could be musicians seems a great compliment.

to say that he single-handedly lowered the bar of all music that followed in the decades since is pretty absurd, though. if he did give Iggy Pop the courage to form the Stooges, which helped spawn the punk ethos and The Clash, and they in turn gave more exposure to ska and reggae, and so on and so forth, then i for one am eternally grateful.

on Goethe and Dante though, we can agree.

 

[tru blu]

No quibbling with Goethe or Dante, but much great verse has been written in the meantime. I think that's kinda the thing underlying the disdain for Lou Reed throughout this discussion: It seems as if there's a subtle (or at least unspoken) rejection of Reed as an agent of modern/contemporary modes of listening and enjoyment. Too late!

 

[DavidMahler]

Hey now........I like plenty of "non easy listening" music............and in fact i vastly prefer John Cale to Lou Reed.

I'm actually a big fan of Messiaen, Varese and others outside of the rock outfit.

On the other hand I find Lou Reed to be extremely easy listening. To me Lou Reed sounds like someone whos raw not for artistic reasons, but crude because he never learned his craft. It's very easy to listen to someone play a few chords badly.

 

[bikeboy999]

I see a copy of the Lou Reed Transformer album in the top corner. Does this mean that there are some people who think that Lou is progrock?


B

 

[goldenratiophi]

DavidMahler: Just wondering, what do you think of Captain Beefheart/The Magic Band?

 

[Fallen]

Wow. It's amazing how much I can disagree with someone's opinion. I'm actually shocked at the violence of my reaction.

Oh well. Good on yer David Mahler. Although I have to ask, are you open though to the idea that your opinion may change one day?

I used to not see the value in Tom Waits either, for example. I now cannot imagine my music collection without him.

Tell you what, my opinion of Lou Reed, my intense connection to his music, I may one day see as a mistake, although I doubt it.

Is it possible you just don't get Lou Reed yet, just as I didn't get Tom Waits, so many years ago?

 

[goldenratiophi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fallen /img/forum/go_quote.gif I used to not see the value in Tom Waits either, for example. I now cannot imagine my music collection without him.

Phew, I was about to tear your flesh apart until I noticed the second sentence.

 

[DavidMahler]

I love Captain Beefheart. I love Zappa. I do not like Tom Waits haha. Aside from finding his songs boring, he sounds like what Cookie Monster would sound like if he drank a bit too much.

I actually know session players who have worked with Lou Reed. I'm a session player myself. But I am a recording engineer mostly. I worked as an assistant on the Dylan album Love and Theft while at Clinton Recording Studios in New York. There I met some ex-Reed sessioners. What you have to understand about songwriters like Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, is that generally when you're hearing a song you like by the composer with the rare exception of early acoustic dylan which for me is much better than electric dylan, that you are really hearing a PRODUCER'S VISION, they take very raw songs like Walk on the Wild Side, or Martha, and such like that that by the time the song is finished its nothing like it was at its conception. You think Dylan could have invisioned the magic of the Like a Rolling Stone recording. If you hear it played live from the same period its a boring mess. Composers like that are good for envisioning songs that are a bit outside the norm, but the songs aren't worth crap until the session musicians who can actually play come join in.

Does anyone here really like that stupid Lou Reed Song Like a Possum?
I'll be honest, its the most ridiculous song I've ever heard and its not too far from Sister Ray.

My opinion of Reed will not change as I feel it to be necessary that music offers the ear a sort of challenge. Theres a difference between being unmelodic for artistic reasons, and being unmelodic because your brain and voice simply is so limited that it cant handle writing or singing melody.

My belief about the Velvet Underground is the reason why some of their songs are actually decent is because of John Cale. And funny enough all the songs that involve actual singing is left to Nico (also a singer who can't really sing, but far exceeds Lou)............Candy Says is about the most musical thing Lou ever composed. But its not a particularly good vocal on the record.

The VU were influential not only cause they took poetic risks, but because of the poor musicianship (excluding John Cale), it left doors open for so many other poor musicians.
Bowie's songs are emotionless, sing about made up characters and dressed up in make up.

My taste in music is not limited at all, I'm only speaking here of artists I am not fond of.......It's hard for me to have any sort of respect for Lou Reed becuase hes such a poor musician, hes had little or no training and it shows. Maybe thats what some of you like.....the fact that his music comes from a different place, an untrained, unlearned DIY place. I can appreciate that.......if he was good.

I love out there crap like Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, late Coltrane......into all that.....but they know how to play.

 

[PhaedrusX]

that's it...you and me, after school, by the bicycle racks.

of all the over-produced, non-talented musicians out there you choose Reed, Dylan, Waits and Cohen to illustrate your point?

to use your example of Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone," here's an interesting fact. the organ player on that track was not a real studio musician. he basically lied his way onto the set, claiming he was something he was not. yet when it came to the final mixing, it was Dylan and not the producer, who insisted that the organ be upfront in the mix, forever stamping the signature of that song and making it what it is.
also, i doubt that the Beatles scored the orchestral sections on all of their songs.

it's pretty surprising how little credit you are willing to give to a person's vision, conception, and creative process, which to me separates the artist from the musician. it seems way too much weight is given to technical skill and formal training. that's what classical and jazz music highlights. the spirit of rock generally severs those ties and makes it what it is.

it's also presumptuous to assume that Reed's final product came about as a result of ineptness rather than prescience. as an example, on the VU's "What Goes On," there is not a lot going on lyrically there. is that due to Reed's inability to write better prose? no. on that track, he envisioned a song that was purely guitar-driven, and wanted to emphasize the layers and rhythms of strings. i think he accomplished what he set out to.

again, it all comes down to personal taste here and i respect that. but your reasoning seems skewed, and it would not be difficult to point out the inconsistencies in what you claim as standards against some of the artists you list as personal favorites (again, using your comparison with seven year-olds, i'm willing to bet there are a few with better percussion skills than Ringo Starr, but does that detract from his contribution to the Beatles and their legacy?)

if you can't make it after school, lunchtime works for me :]

 

[DavidMahler]

I've never heard a percussionist know how to play beatles songs better than Ringo. I can't say the same for Maureen Tucker. Next youre going to tell me that the drummer from the white stripes is all that too! I'll get beaten up here for saying I dislike the Ramones, Pistols, Patti Smith, and every other untalented band/artist who came out in that era......you know who those bands are.

Without lou reed and his untalented ensemble there probably would have never been a "Sniff some glue" or "I wanna be Sedated".....or "Ziggy Stardust" or "Lust for Life"........yes its true. Just cause people are influential doesn't mean they are good. I have a serious distaste for Lou Reed because I know 100 percent that without him, there would be a lot less power chord / glam / punk / outside the box garbage bands.
And the truth generally is.....the more sophisticated an artist is, the less influence they have in mainstream. I'm gonna get a lot of crap for that but its true. The reason for this is sophistication is difficult to absorb and learn from, but bogus BS like Venus in Furs and Waiting for My Man and What Goes On is easy to imitate and learn from.

Take the beatles for instance, one of my all time favorite bands..............their more sophisticated songs like Because, You Never Give Me Your Money..........they show to have a more narrow influence than She Loves You or Hey Jude.

Brian Wilson's most advanced stuff is hardly known, yet songs like Surfer Girl, California Girls is huge. Pet Sounds is a special record because while it is very advanced, it was a commercial success and was also influential.

The Velvet Underground's records were commercial flops because the world was not ready to embrace what you may call their genius, what i call their mediocrity. If sounding like you just wrote the song and didnt rehearse it, and didnt even write a melody for it, and can't even inflect realistic pitches in the voice and can't even play a god damn violin without ******** up, and cant keep time on the drums is what you call genius.............then by all means its genius...........but as my friend who loves lou reed always says to me "I love Lou Reed IN SPITE of all those flaws". Well if i have to deal with an obscene number of musical flaws to get to poetry like "Shiny Shiny Shiny boots of leather" or "But if you close the door and say hello to never" stuff like that, then I'd rather let the cds collect dust and spend my time listening to musicians.