If you're like me, when you think of Lou Reed, you think of his seminal band the Velvet Underground first and foremost. There's a good reason for that. The Velvet Underground is among the greatest and most influential rock bands of all time, instrumental in spawning punk, grunge, noise, metal, and a strong influence on hip hop.
You can’t scratch the surface of the majority of important rock/pop music over the last fifty years without finding a VU pedigree.
But after recently reading Anthony DeCurtis' excellent biography on Reed, I realized I needed to listen to Lou's solo work with fresh ears. Lou released twenty solo studio albums after the breakup of the Velvets, along with multiple collaborative works. There were also live albums, retrospective collections, and hybrids.
Lou Reed's body of work goes far beyond his Velvet Underground days
Two of the solo albums were largely experimental without lyrics. Though he repurposed a number of tracks he had originally written while playing with the Velvet Underground, he created far more music as a soloist than in his five years with his iconic band. And I think I may have been guilty of overlooking far too much of it.
Overlooking Lou’s solo work means overlooking a lot of other ground-breaking – and just plain kick-ass music. So here is a countdown of his 15 best solo tracks. I tried to spread the love around to a number of different albums because there is something good on almost all of them and they are all worth checking out.
No. 15 - "I Love You Suzanne," 1984
For the most part, in order to be on this list, you can’t just be a good song. Lou always thought of himself as a writer who happened to use rock and roll as his means of expression. So his lyrics are almost always at the forefront of his most compelling work.
Not so on "I Love You Suzanne." This is just an old-school rocker that betrays his love for '50s/’60s pop. His citing of the Contours’ 1962 "Do You Love Me" at the beginning of the leadoff track of his New Sensations album is a nod to the doo-wop and Motown that was always lingering in the back of his music.
No. 14 - "Sheltered Life," 1976
In 1975, Lou thrust a double album called Metal Machine Music on an unsuspecting public. It was a giant “FU” to his record label and the public alike. Some will deny that, and call the hour of guitar feedback revolutionary.
I don’t want to fight that battle right now. I only mention it because the backlash led Lou to release Rock and Roll Heart, a very tame, user-friendly album the following year. Rock and Roll Heart isn’t bad, but it’s not very good either. But it does have this one satirical gem, resuscitated from the Velvet years. The jazzy bass/sax/piano reveals yet another side of Lou’s musical tastes. He even stretches his voice beyond his typical deadpan.
No. 13 - "Kill Your Sons," 1974
OK – now we’re talking about a more typical Lou Reed number. Oddly enough, it comes off another of his more accessible, upbeat albums – Sally Can’t Dance. But that didn’t stop Lou from writing a harrowing depiction of his experiences with electroconvulsive therapy in his late teens. Lou often wrote about his troubled childhood and this is him at his angriest, supported by howling guitar riffs and a throbbing bass line. Again – not one of his better albums, but a memorable song nonetheless.
No. 12 - "Families," 1979
After savaging his parents in "Kill Your Sons," Lou was equally capable of writing a sensitive, loving tribute to the very same people. The song is filled with regret at the inevitable separation between Lou and his parents and sister, but there is a longing there too. It is in many ways a beautiful, mature discussion of how sometimes things just don’t work out, with no one really to blame. All in a jazzy earworm pop song.
No. 11 - "Sex With Your Parents," 1996
Speaking of making up with your family...this song is not specifically about Lou’s parents. It is about the sickening hypocrisy that Lou saw in the modern conservative movement. This is the newest song on my list and it shows that even late in his career, Lou was capable of putting controversy right in your face – all to a good beat. This is largely a talking blues song that directly confronts the entire “family values” phenomenon of the 1990s. And again, it comes on an otherwise average, pleasant album.
No. 10 - "Wild Child," 1972
Lou’s self-titled debut album is usually overlooked because it wasn’t up to the standards of mature Velvet Underground albums, and it was about to be totally overshadowed by one of Lou’s two best albums. But in hindsight, Lou Reed is a pretty good album, filled with Velvet songs that the band had played live but had never recorded. This one, in which Lou bumps up against Dylan, but with a better sense of pop melody, is a great ‘60s number that happened to come out in the ‘70s. (The ‘60s extended into the mid-‘70s, though it was in the process of withering for much of that time.)
No. 9 - "Martial Law," 1983
This might be one of the guilty pleasures here. I don’t know that many people would choose this as one of Lou’s best, but I can’t resist it. It is another cheeky examination of family dynamics in which a couple of authority figures intervene in a troubled marriage to set everything straight. It has the driving guitar and bass typical of most of Lou’s rock songs, but knowing how much Lou despised the kind of authoritarianism he is personifying here gives this an irresistible edge.
No. 8 - "Vicious," 1972
Truth be told, for the first half of this list, I had about 25 songs that were virtually interchangeable. I chose the ones I did because they appealed to me most when I sat down to actually write. But the top eight are inviolate – beginning with the first track from Transformer.
Andy Warhol suggested the theme and the opening lines – “Vicious, you hit me with a flower” – as a dig at the San Francisco hippie movement that the New York-based VU hated so much. Reed brought his signature propulsive guitar, and announced his career as a soloist, with shades of the Underground, but with some new wrinkles.
No. 7 - "Work," 1991
I debated whether to include any tracks from Songs For Drella, the Andy Warhol tribute album Lou, and former Velvet Underground bandmate John Cale produced after Warhol’s death. After all, it is a collaborative, as opposed to a solo, effort. But it is such an audacious, wonderful project, and of all the songs, "Work," chronicling Lou’s specific relationship with Andy, seems about as Lou as you can get. It is a great rock song on a great concept album.
No. 6 - "Video Violence," 1986
Tipper Gore founded the Parents Music Resource Center in 1985, and a number of artists felt the need to respond to what they saw as an attack on artistic liberty. Lou Reed, as was often the case, did it better than just about anyone. His lyrics don’t so much as give pop music a pass as place it in a larger context.
By pointing out how desperate and depraved society at large is, pop music just becomes one more piece of a global problem. It is so much better than the basic middle finger that most musicians were giving to the morality police. And it just happens to be an excellent rocker to boot.
No. 5 - "Halloween Parade," 1989
Transformer is Reed’s best-known album, but 1989’s New York contains his best solo work. "Halloween Parade" is among the most touching songs he ever wrote. Delivered in the flat, observational voice that was his trademark, Lou documents New York’s annual Halloween parade that had become a landmark in gay culture, and remarks on how many people are now missing. It is one of the sweetest, saddest songs about the onset of the AIDS epidemic.
No. 4 - "Walk on the Wild Side," 1972
If you only know one Lou Reed song, this is the one you know. The song is instantly recognizable sliding bass has been used in commercials for Honda, Michelob, and Airbnb – something no one would ever have thought possible of a Lou Reed song. David Bowie produced Transformer and Mick Ronson contributed sparkling guitar and orchestrations, but Lou shines through on the songs.
"WWS" is a rather simple portrait of five regulars at Warhol’s Factory – outcasts from “normal” society who created their own home in Manhattan and helped spawn a cultural revolution. Lou was the only artist in the early ‘70s music scene capable of writing a line like “plucked her eyebrows on the way, shaved her legs, and then he was a she.” There still aren’t very many who can say something so simple and make the world suddenly look different.
No. 3 - "Caroline Says II," 1973
There are some fans who consider 1973’s Berlin to be Lou’s greatest achievement. I am not one of them. It’s true that its astonishing concept – tackling the violent breakup of a marriage in open and honest words – eventually would find universal critical acceptance, getting grand orchestral re-interpretations.
But even though I recognize the power of many songs, I don’t find it all that listenable. I make an exception for "Caroline Says II." A descendent of Lou’s “Says” songs, beginning with the Velvet’s outstanding "Candy Says," "Caroline" is another one of Lou’s tragic heroines who is trying to come to terms with her undeserved fate.
DeCurtis quotes Suzanne Vega as having an epiphany upon hearing the lyric “Caroline says, as she gets up off the floor, You can hit me all you want to, but I don’t love you anymore.” Rock songs could be about anything. Anything in the world.
No. 2 - "Dirty Boulevard," 1989
New York didn’t have a major hit and that hurt Lou. "Dirty Boulevard" should have been that hit. Had it come out five years later, it almost certainly would have been. As usual, Lou was too far out in front of where music was.
It is catchy. It is sharp. It is poignant. It is New York.
No. 1 - "Street Hassle," 1978
"Street Hassle" is unlike any other song in pop music history. It begins with more than two minutes of an insistent cello playing a motif that will be repeated throughout the three stanzas of the song. The first part – "Waltzing Matilda" – is a typically nonjudgmental portrait of a one-night stand gone right. The second part – "Street Hassle" – is terrifying in its casual depiction of just how disposable a certain type of life can be.
And the final piece – "Slip Away" – which begins with a largely spoken word recitation by Bruce Springsteen – captures something that Lou often wrestled with – how to treat the ones who never seem to fit in. It was something he considered throughout his career.
"Coney Island Baby," which may have been number 16 on my list had I gone that far, comes at it from the other side. For such an opinionated, strong-willed writer, Lou had the amazing ability to see things from many different sides. You know – the way all great writers do.