Sweet, Wild and Vicious by Jim Higgins
Lou Reed never sold as many records as The Beatles or The Rolling Stones. He enjoyed one thoroughly unlikely hit single, “Walk on the Wild Side” (1971), and a brief run of FM LP rotation with Rock n Roll Animal (1974) and Sally Can’t Dance (1974). However, his DNA is spread across the “alternative rock” of the past several decades from the late ‘70s punk explosion through the present.
Reed’s life has been picked apart by several biographers, yet interesting as was his association with Andy Warhol and other scene makers, his music is his legacy. With Sweet, Wild and Vicious, Milwaukee music critic Jim Higgins gives a close listen to Reed’s catalog. He proceeds chronologically by the release dates of Reed’s albums, some 50 in all, including anthologies, concert releases and desperate dives into the archives.
Higgins is a fan who approaches his subject with a sophisticated analysis that admits to the glaring flaws in Reed’s extensive catalog. He was profound and churlish, onstage and lyrically; utterly engaged and totally distracted; focused on selling records when he wasn’t plotting to derail his career. The arc of his music doesn’t rise or fall in a straight line but swerves and shifts and rises again.
Reed is primarily influential for his lead role in the Velvet Underground. Although the band sold few records, everyone who bought a VU album went on to form a band (or become a rock critic), as Brian Eno famously said. But which VU album? Each of their four studio LPs was entirely distinct and echoed the band’s changing lineup. The dark psychedelic folk-rock of The Velvet Underground and Nico (1967) was imbued with John Cale’s artful noise and Nico’s icy vocals. The abrasive White Light/White Heat (1968) was a prototype for industrial rock. Recorded after Cale’s departure, The Velvet Underground (1969) was gentle, meditative. Loaded (1970) was almost pop with the unassuming Doug Yule on many lead vocals.
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Responding to questions, Higgins describes the Velvet Underground as “famously mutable. When someone says they love the Velvet Underground, are they talking about the John Cale years? The band with Doug Yule? Loaded, with substitute drummers sitting in for Moe Tucker? The only constants are Reed’s voice and songs.” He added, “I’m not sure if Reed was haunted by the VU or not. I think he thought of their songs as his songs,” and he continued to perform several of them, especially “Sweet Jane,” throughout his career.
And yet, Reed was always competing with his legacy, whether the Velvet Underground or his early triumph as a solo artist, Transformer (1972), in the minds of many fans who followed him down the several paths he took from the ‘70s through Lulu (2011), a sad finale with Metallica as his backing band. At his best, as Higgins writes, the “hard-nosed concision” of his songwriting was always apparent, as was his voice, “sarcastic, provocative, defiant.” The harmony-bending adventures of ‘60s avant-garde jazz were discernable in the Velvet Underground and took the fore on later albums many fans found puzzling, including the underrated The Bells (1979).
Lou Reed contained multitudes, not all of them attractive (or even listenable), but as Higgins aptly puts it in his book, he “made the musical paint box so much more expansive for those who followed.” Sweet, Wild and Vicious is a smart, deeply thought (and felt) examination of an artist who changed the direction of music.
Higgins will discuss Sweet, Wild and Vicious 6:30 p.m., May 9 at Boswell Books.
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