Lou Reed
Transformer (Bonus Tracks)
Albumkritik
Plattenfirma: BMG Heritage
Erscheinungsdatum: 2002
Albumkritik
There's good fake Bowie (you remember Al Stewart's "Year of the Cat"), and there's bad fake Bowie (you don't remember Spacehog), and, of course, there's transcendent fake Bowie (you could probably hum "Rocket Man" right now). But Lou Reed's Transformer is one of the all-time great fake-Bowie albums, partly because David Bowie himself produced it (with longtime guitar pal Mick Ronson), and partly because Bowie copped so much of his steez from Reed in the first place. Reed's 1972 solo debut, Lou Reed, had been a folksy beauty, with ballads such as "Going Down," "I Love You" and "Love Makes You Feel." But Transformer turns up the guitar flash for a glam manifesto every bit as outrageous as Lou Reed himself. If a sexy New York sociopath in lipstick and a motorcycle jacket sneering, "You hit me with a flower" isn't glam, what is?
On Transformer, Reed chronicles a pansexual night world of leather queens, slick little girls, eyebrow pluckers, lemon-peel suckers, down-and-out angels looking for soul food and love sweet love. He speeds away in bitch-rockers such as "Vicious" and "Hangin' Round," while Bowie and Ronson add a touch of sentimental splendor to the ballads, especially the doo-wop-inflected goof "Andy's Chest," the ironically majestic "Satellite of Love" and the unironically openhearted "Perfect Day."
But the most famous song here is also the best, "Walk on the Wild Side," which doo-doo-doo'd its way into history as one of the filthiest and most terrifying Top Forty hits ever. Reed's acoustic guitar, Herbie Flowers' stand-up bass and Ronnie Ross' sax take off from Jean Knight's classic R&B shuffle "Mr. Big Stuff" for a decadent tour of Reed's old Warhol Factory crowd: Holly Woodlawn, Candy Darling, Sugar Plum Fairy and others. Over the years, this song has somehow managed to survive hip-hop samples, Reed's infamous TV ad for Honda scooters ("Don't settle for walking" - yeah, right), and getting played by Tori Spelling on the high school radio station on Beverly Hills 90210. On his 1978 live album Take No Prisoners, Reed does an utterly over-the-top seventeen-minute version, adding much, much more than you ever wanted to know about the characters ("Little Joe was an idiot!"). Reed and Bowie never made another album together, but Transformer still looms large in both their legends.
ROB SHEFFIELD
(RS 892 - March 28, 2002)
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