Solo and with Velvet Underground, Reed changed the rock landscape forever
When the iconic Velvet Underground & Nico album was released in 1967 I was all of six years old, so VU was never a part of my lived experience. I never became a fan of their music, exactly, although my inner rock historian grew into a deep respect for their place in the canon. This respect only grew as the magnitude of their influence became clearer and clearer over the past 20 years or so.
Lou Reed, the genius behind VU and a man whose legacy is unarguably among the most important in popular music history, died earlier today.
Those who know me will tell you that I not only loves my rock ‘n roll, I’m a student of its roots and its culture.I care a lot about influence and creative lineage and I especially appreciate it when artists understand where their sound came from, either directly or indirectly. Back in 2008 I penned a piece on obscurity and influence, highlighting some of the artists across the past few decades whose impact on what came later far surpassed the fame and success they enjoyed for their own music. The primary focus of that article was Joy Division, but I led with this:
Many people have heard of Velvet Underground, although comparatively few have actually listened to them, but if you factor VU’s overwhelming influence out of our collective cultural history would we have had Bauhaus, Echo & the Bunnymen, Lenny Kravitz, Sonic Youth, Jesus & Mary Chain (and subsequently Black Rebel Motorcycle Club), Galaxie 500 (and the army of bands that followed their lead) and REM?
This barely scratches the surface, though. Have a look at the “followers” listings for the Velvets at AllMusic.
| Brian Eno Can David Bowie Joy Division Kraftwerk Patti Smith Roxy Music Sex Pistols Sonic Youth Talking Heads Television The Stooges The Verve U2 Duran Duran Echo & the Bunnymen Faust Galaxie 500 Jonathan Richman Mink DeVille My Bloody Valentine Neu! New York Dolls Nirvana Pere Ubu Pixies Pretenders Sparks Stereolab Suicide The Church The Cure The Dream Syndicate The Fall The Feelies The Jesus and Mary Chain |
Gang of Four Gary Numan Glenn Branca Hüsker Dü Iggy Pop Jane’s Addiction Japan Jim Carroll Let’s Active Love and Rockets Mercury Rev Mott the Hoople R.E.M. Siouxsie and the Banshees Spacemen 3 Sun City Girls Swell Maps Swervedriver Television Personalities The Chills The Flaming Lips The House of Love The Modern Lovers The Psychedelic Furs The Verlaines Throbbing Gristle Tom Tom Club Unrest Bauhaus Big Star Clinic Dirty Three Godspeed You! Black Emperor Low My Morning Jacket |
The Dandy Warhols The Fiery Furnaces The Go-Betweens The Strokes The Vaselines The Weather Prophets Agent Ribbons Au Dunes Deleted Scenes Stevie Jackson Simple Minds Slint Slowdive Spectrum Spoon Th’ Faith Healers That Petrol Emotion The Boo Radleys The Chameleons UK Broadcast Chrome Controlled Bleeding Dead Boys Electrelane Yo La Tengo Young Marble Giants Amon Düül Beat Happening Belle and Sebastian Rocket from the Tombs Silver Apples British Sea Power Peter Bjorn and John Pussy Galore The Raincoats |
I’m willing to bet that our friends in The Lost Patrol and The Blueflowers wouldn’t object to being on that list, as well. Fiction 8, too. And Paul Lewis. Most of my musician friends, in fact. Have a look at the genres this list encompasses.
- Alternative
- Indie
- ElectroPop
- Grunge
- Glam
- Goth
- Krautrock
- Post-Rock
- Space Rock
- Industrial
- Noise Pop
- Shoegazer
- Punk
- Garage
- New Wave
- Post-Punk
- Jangle Pop
- Power Pop
- Classic Rock
- DreamPop
- Chamber Pop
Get the idea? The Beatles were the biggest thing in the history of popular music and it’s hard to imagine any band or solo artist ever surpassing the influence they exerted, both musical and cultural. But it’s entirely possible that the #2 position on that list belongs to Lou Reed. If you’re a devotee of serious popular music today, it’s nigh-on inconceivable that your collection is free of Lou Reed’s legacy, whether you knew it or not. Odds are that your library, like mine, is teeming with bands that owe their souls to VU & Nico, White Light/White Heat and all that followed from the Velvets and, later, from Reed’s solo career.
Reed made his name as an urban avant gardiste, as head of the house band for Andy Warhol’s pop art uprising. By the time he was through, he’d done as much, if not more, to shape the sound of popular music in ways that would endure for decades.
Thanks, Lou. We owe you more than we could ever have repaid.
_____
Image: AllMusic Guide
Categories: Music/Popular Culture
Progressive Culture | Scholars & Rogues 
Bummer, I hadn’t heard about his death until now. In the next few days I’ll be sure to play some of his albums and some VU.
Lou Reed wouldn’t have been anything without John Cale.
Reed would have been a major influence with or without Cale, it’s a matter of public knowledge the two never even got on all that well. Aside from that what poor form you show to make a statement of that nature before the body’s even interred.
Another crass sod who understand less than they think they do about what Lou’s entire body of work leaves as a legacy. Heroin is pure Lou and while Cale’s work backing that piece live on Rock and Roll Animal is marvelous only Lou could put into words the experience of the drug so succinctly. Critic Ellen Willis wrote “No other work of art I know about has made the junkie’s experience so horrible, so powerful, so appealing; listening to ‘Heroin’ I feel simultaneously impelled to somehow save this man and to reach for the needle.”
It’s too bad Robert Quine isn’t here to see this…