Anthony Decurtis Lou Reed

In October 1990, Lou Reed interviewed Vaclav Havel, playwright, poet, president of the newly emancipated Czechoslovakia, and – surprisingly? – a Velvet Underground fan. During the course of their conversation, Havel handed Reed a book. "These are your lyrics, hand-printed and translated into Czechoslovakian. There were only 200 of them. They were very dangerous to have. People went to jail." Nobody will go to jail for owning Between Thought and Expression, but Reed's lyrics remain dangerous – not, as in Communist Czechoslovakia, for what they are, but for what they say…

In 1972, Lou Reed was a minor cult hero to a handful of rock critics and left-of-center music fans who championed his former band, the Velvet Underground, but he was unknown to the mainstream music audience. By 1986, Reed was a rock & roll icon, widely hailed as a master songwriter and one of the founding fathers of punk, glam, noise rock, and any number of other vital rock subgenres; he even scored a few hits along the way. If you want to know what happened during those 14 years to make such a difference, the answer can be found in The RCA & Arista Album Collection, a 17-disc box set that brings together nearly all of Reed's recorded work from this period…

Live stage performance of Lou Reed's 1973 album, recorded at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, New York over five nights in 2007. When it was first released, 'Berlin', Reed's third solo outing, received a critical mauling, especially since it followed his earlier triumph, 'Transformer', with its hit single 'Walk On The Wild Side'…

Lou Reed - Different Times, Lou Reed In The '70s (1996) {RCA 66864-2}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 432 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 183 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 20 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1970's, 1996 RCA Records / BMG | 66864-2
Rock / Rock & Roll / Psychedelic Rock / Art Rock

Lou Reed is very much an album-oriented artist, and those who think they may develop a serious interest in his work are better advised to seek individual titles than compilations. If you just want some of his best songs around the house, though, this is a well-chosen, economic 17-track survey of his best material from his best period as a solo act (the early to mid-'70s). Drawing most heavily from the Transformer and Berlin albums, this has his most famous/notorious early solo works ("Walk on the Wild Side," "Vicious," "Satellite of Love," "Caroline Says"), some inferior but notably different remakes of songs he recorded with the Velvet Underground ("Lisa Says," "I Can't Stand It," "Sweet Jane"), and other high points like "Kill Your Sons" and "Coney Island Baby.

With 1982's The Blue Mask, Lou Reed began approaching more mature and challenging themes in his music, and in 1992, Reed decided it was time to tackle the Most Serious Theme of All – Death. Reed lost two close friends to cancer within the space of a year, and the experience informed Magic and Loss, a set of 14 songs about loss, illness, and mortality. It would have been easy for a project like this to sound morbid, but Reed avoids that; the emotions that dominate these songs are fear and helplessness in the face of a disease (and a fate) not fully understood, and Reed's songs struggle to balance these anxieties with bravery, humor, and an understanding of the notion that death is an inevitable part of life – that you can't have the magic without the loss.