Lou Reed, who died on Oct. 27 at the age of 71, had an influence on popular music that was far out of proportion to his commercial success. Both his work as the chief songwriter and vocalist for the Velvet Underground and his solo efforts influenced countless musicians, though he only had a handful of songs and albums that were moderate chart hits. In retrospect, his lack of commercial success is not too surprising. His deadpan, almost monotone vocals aren’t the type that have much commercial appeal, and while his lyrics were highly poetic, the subjects many of them covered, including outcasts, transvestites, drug addicts and controversial topics like suicide, made getting airplay difficult.
An obvious contrast would be Paul McCartney, who was born a few months after Reed. In 1967, the same year that McCartney was writing and performing excellent and highly commercial songs like “Penny Lane” with the Beatles, Reed was writing and performing excellent, but very uncommercial, songs like “Heroin” with the Velvet Underground. However, to many musicians and artists, it was exactly the features of Reed’s music which made commercial success unlikely that gave his music such appeal. No one in music sounded like him or wrote songs like his, and his pushing of the boundaries both lyrically and musically helped lay the groundwork for many artists who came after him.
The Velvet Underground was formed in the mid-1960s by Lou Reed and Welsh musician John Cale and came to the attention of artist Andy Warhol, who sponsored the recording of the band’s first album, though he insisted that they use the vocalist Nico on several songs. The resulting album, ‘The Velvet Underground & Nico,’ is now regarded as one of the greatest and most influential albums in rock history. Aside from the aforementioned “Heroin,” it contained other songs referring to drug use (“I'm Waiting for the Man” and “Run Run Run”), a song about bondage and sadomasochism (“Venus in Furs”), a song about Warhol’s disciples and hangers-on (“All Tomorrow’s Parties”), and slightly more commercial sounding songs like “Sunday Morning,” “I’ll Be Your Mirror” and “Femme Fatale.” The album sold poorly, but as artist/producer Brian Eno famously remarked, most of the people who bought the album were inspired to start bands. The Velvet Underground’s second album was the even more avant-garde and uncommercial ‘White Light/White Heat,’ which made heavy use of feedback, distortion and unconventional sound effects. Cale left the band in 1968 and the band’s third and fourth albums, which contained some of Reed’s best known songs, including “Pale Blue Eyes,” “Beginning to See the Light,” “Sweet Jane” and “Rock & Roll,” were much more gentle and acoustic than their first two. None of the later three albums did any better than ‘The Velvet Underground & Nico’ commercially, but all of them are now critical favorites and their songs have been frequently covered by other artists.
Lou Reed left the Velvet Underground in 1970 to pursue a solo career. Though his first album didn’t sell well, his second, ‘Transformer,’ was co-produced by Reed fan David Bowie, who helped turn it into the biggest selling album of Reed’s career. Aside from containing Reed’s biggest hit, “Walk on the Wild Side,” it contained the minor hit “Satellite of Love,” the Warhol-inspired “Vicious” and “Perfect Day,” which became a No. 1 hit in the UK in 1997 when it was released as a charity single performed by a multitude of stars, including Bono of U2, Bowie, Elton John, Tammy Wynette, Emmylou Harris, Brett Anderson of Suede and even Boyzone. Reed followed ‘Transformer’ with the dark and depressing ‘Berlin,’ which lost him much of his pop audience and received mixed reviews from critics, setting a pattern of fluctuating commercial and critical fortunes. Nevertheless, albums like ‘Coney Island Baby,’ ‘Street Hassle,’ ‘The Blue Mask’ and ‘New York’ received rave reviews and songs from his later solo career include numerous highlights like “How Do You Think It Feels,” “Caroline Says II,” “Coney Island Baby,” “Kicks,” “Street Hassle,” “Shooting Star,” “The Blue Mask,” “The Gun,” “The Last Shot,” “I Love You, Suzanne,” “No Money Down,” “Romeo Had Juliette” and “Dirty Blvd.” His work has influenced and been covered by artists such as David Bowie, R.E.M, Cowboy Junkies, Duran Duran, U2, Beck, Blur, Phish and The Strokes, just to name a few. Heavy metal legends Metallica collaborated with him on an album in 2011. Even Vaclav Havel, the Czech dissident playwright who later became president of the Czech Republic, said he was a big fan of the Velvet Underground. While Reed himself may be gone, his impact on music is still being felt and will no doubt last long into the future.
