{"id":429856,"date":"2025-09-16T22:40:16","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T22:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/429856\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T22:40:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T22:40:16","slug":"the-album-lou-reed-called-the-best-live-record-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/429856\/","title":{"rendered":"The album Lou Reed called the best live record ever"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Lou<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ YouTube Still)<\/p>\n

Tue 16 September 2025 22:00, UK <\/p>\n

Live music has a unique power and atmosphere that, try as the music industry might, can never be recaptured within a recording. Still, if you missed out on a show \u2013 either because you weren\u2019t born at that time, or you were simply too stingy to fork out for a ticket \u2013 live albums have become an incredible resource for looking back at the golden age of artists like Lou Reed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Going right back to his Velvet Underground heyday back in the 1960s, Reed was routinely noted for his incredible, subversive, and often confrontational live shows<\/a>. In one of the music industry\u2019s greatest tragedies, though, The Velvet Underground went woefully underappreciated in their time, and any live shows or live albums the band put out during their relatively short tenure went largely unnoticed. <\/p>\n

In fact, it was only during the following decade that The Velvets earned the cult reputation that made Reed an indisputable king of the underground and alternative. Part of that blossoming reputation came from the outspoken adoration of folks like David Bowie, who used The Velvet Underground as a basis for his earth-shattering output during the early 1970s, in addition to the explosion of punk rock, which owed a lot to the subversive power of the New York outfit. Either way, it was too little too late as far as The Velvet Underground were concerned. <\/p>\n

Reed had already immersed himself in a solo career<\/a> which took his songwriting in entirely new directions, moving on from the comparatively lofi, primitive output of The Velvets, and carving out a space for himself among the greatest solo performers of the time in the process. Even still, the power of the material he wrote alongside John Cale during those early years never really subsided, particularly in the hearts of Reed\u2019s cult following.<\/p>\n

Seemingly, Reed was first inspired to include some of his old compositions in his solo setlists by the little-known Michigan outfit, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels. \u201cWell, I had a lot of time to think after the Velvet Underground broke up and here were these songs of mine,\u201d he told Classic Rock<\/a> in 2004. \u201cAnd then I heard Mitch Ryder\u2019s Detroit Wheels, produced by Bob \u2018Wonderboy\u2019 Ezrin, doing \u2018Rock And Roll\u2019 and I said, \u2018Aha, that\u2019s fun.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

That initial inspiration led Reed to rediscover his old work, and adapt it to fit his own solo sound, with the addition of a few helping hands. \u201cSo Ezrin got Alice Cooper\u2019s band for me. I can\u2019t play that way, I don\u2019t wanna play that way, but they were as good at \u2018that way\u2019 as anybody else around. So I said, \u2018Okay, here\u2019s the material.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

He explained, \u201cThey didn\u2019t know it from the Velvet Underground, they\u2019d never heard it, so I just taught them the whole thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eventually, this unexpected collaboration led to the creation of a legendary live album, Lou Reed\u2019s Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll Animal. \u201cNow we\u2019ll try it again, see what happens five years later. Duh. Let\u2019s see if they [the record-buying public] get it this time around. Change the presentation,\u201d Reed recalled of the album\u2019s motives. <\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, it is not something that I would want to keep doing, but it was probably one of the greatest live records ever made,\u201d he boldly declared. \u201cSo there you have it.\u201d You could call Lou Reed a lot of things, but modest isn\u2019t one of them. <\/p>\n

Still, he is not far off in his claim that his 1974 record is one of the greatest live albums ever recorded. Not only did the album witness the kind of commercial success that was never afforded to The Velvet Underground, but it also perfectly captured the trailblazing spirit and enduring appeal of Reed\u2019s early material, albeit rendered in his distinctive solo style. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ YouTube Still) Tue 16 September 2025 22:00, UK Live music has a unique power…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[77,43999,269,85167,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-429856","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-lou-reed","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-the-velvet-underground","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115216386044343610","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}