Bob Dylan, through years of practice, has finally learned to carry a tune. He lands on the note within the first half of the note’s duration and manages to keep the note on pitch through the end of that note before lazily aiming for the next one. But his songwriting is excellent, and America was too stoned to notice that he couldn’t sing when they made him famous, so he gets a pass.
What’s Lou Reed’s excuse? His songs are… well, they’re okay I guess, but like Dylan, his biggest contribution is writing songs that were made into great covers: the Cowboy Junkies covered Sweet Jane, but in Lou’s versions I swear to god he’s FLAT on the chorus. And in the “heavenly white roses” bridge, I think he’s singing in a totally different key than the band. It’s as bad as the worst karaoke I’ve ever heard. When Jane’s Addiction covered Rock and Roll, I looked forward to hearing the original because Perry Farrell isn’t all that great a singer… but when I heard Lou’s version, sweet jesus, he’s all over the map. He mumbles, comes in flat, can’t pick a note, and when he does it’s the wrong choice. Walk on the Wild Side isn’t as bad, but still betrays his half-hearted commitment to maintaining a single pitch for any appreciable length of time.
So what’s the deal? Does his influence as a songwriter give him a pass like Dylan? Did Warhol make him a star despite his lack of singing ability? Were (gasp!) drugs involved? I confess that I haven’t bought any of the albums and listened to them straight through, and I can’t “go get high and listen to X” just to appreciate it because of my job. But if I can appreciate Phish and the Grateful Dead without pharmaceuticals, then any band that takes pharmaceutical assistance probably isn’t worth it to me.
Heh, I had a Lou Reed (Yes, that’s where my username came from) CD in the car with the wife and kid last week and I too was apologizing for his voice, comparing its weakness to that of Neil Young, Dylan, Hendrix and Joe Walsh. Like them though, some of the songs are just so darn choice that, to me at least, it’s little to suffer through in order to enjoy such a fine tune. Like Zappa, Reed just has such a strong personality, so much to say, that coming from anyone else like a lead singer hired just for his voice it well could have sounded contrived, trite.
Back in 1990, Kevin Godley of 10cc organized a project called “One World, One Voice”. Musicians from around the world prodiuced their own interpretations of this song. The various versions were edited into one track. Everything was going swimmingly until tragedy struck - Lou Reed’s came on. This tune, not a great tune, but OK, had been merrily hopping along when it was broadsided by Lou’s painfully flat vocals and boring ideas of melody. He converted it into a two-note song. It’s horrible!
I realized I was actually thinking of the song “Islands In The Stream”:
*Baby, when I met you there was peace unknown
I set out to get you with a fine tooth comb
I was soft inside, there was somethin going on…
Chorus:
Islands in the stream
That is what we are
No one in-between
How can we be wrong
Sail away with me to another world
And we rely on each other, ah-ah
From one lover to another, ah-ah*
Blarrggh.
Are you referring to Nico’s soothing Germanic foghorn? I think it suits the songs perfectly. As for Lou, I always assumed his lazy, tuneless, slurred delivery was part of the ordinary ‘junkie-next-door’ persona he was trying to deliver.
Maybe mere technical competence isn’t all there is to it. Lou Reed and Bob Dylan don’t have the chops to take on any song, but the songs they wrote would be much duller and lack color if a more conventional singer were to take them on. “Positively 4th Street” was made for the specific twanging sneer Bob Dylan put into it, just like “Waiting For The Man” was made for the longing faux-tough-guy pose Lou Reed sang. And don’t even try to pretend anyone but Dylan could pull off “Gates of Eden” or “Jokerman” because I shall point and laugh if you try.
Back in college I heard “Sick of You” on 97X and everything changed for me. Now every time I break off a relationship I play that song. It’s totally strange, I know, but it’s an awful good tune. As a bonus it makes fun of Rudy Giuliani.
Since you were so helpful in the Boeing thread, here’s my take on Lou Reed: no one will ever sound like him again. That flawed, grumbly nasal thing does to an otherwise clunky song what the bagpipes do to “Amazing Grace.” Or like the Ramones with “Blitzkrieg Bop.”
You’re evaluating Lou Reed on a false pretext. Lou Reed is not a Professional Male Vocal Performer doing standards and MOR music. He’s one of the finer artists and songwriters of the past century. Songwriting is paramount to everything, period, and Lou is an amazing songwriter. The end.
I have a minor retraction: Perfect Day is very well done, and I can’t think of anyone who could do it better off the top of my head. Maybe the guy from Crash Test Dummies?
And so maybe that’s my whole problem then - as a singer I really love a song that’s performed well, and the lyrics come last-place for me behind the tune and the arrangement. Robert Plant is pretty much the edge of my tolerance for “I can put up with that voice for a song this good”; Rush is on the other side of the line for me. If the point of Lou Reed is the songs and not the singing, I’ll content myself with enjoying covers performed well until I can find some more originals that he shines on.
Derleth, Cid, and ETAIONSHRDLU’s point is well-taken: I think Rush would lose something if anyone – even Sting – tried to cover their work, and everyone knows you can’t really cover Immigrant Song. Subterranean Homesick Blues can only be done by Dylan or a really good Dylan impersonator. I’m sure Lou Reed has a cluster of similar songs.
The remake on The Raven with Antony singing is quite awesome.
I rented the “Classic Albums” DVD for Transformer and was struck by how (a) the present-day Lou Reed not only couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, but he didn’t even seem to remember how the songs went and appeared to be making up both melodies and chords as he went along, and (b) the examination of the multitracks where they isolate David Bowie’s backing vocals demonstrate what a huge and amazing contribution he made to that album.
Maureen was/is a horrible singer, but that was sort of the point on the two songs she “sang.” Nico’s voice perfectly suited the songs Reed wrote for her. And Reed’s voice isn’t technically great, of course. It’s more about the tone, the emotion, and the phrasing. He is more a poet than a singer. Wow, I didn’t realize I was replying to a 5 year old thread!!! Zombie Lou Reed…