Paul McCartney is in the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist, but LOU REED isn't. Let's think this through a bit:
Paul has had one of the driest recording spells in the past, oh, 37 years of any supposed genius songwriter since Mozart faked his death and stopped making music for 42 years. (That didn't happen.) 'Ebony & Ivory' and 'Say Say Say' duets are hardly forgotten, or forgiven, nor that disaster 'Give My Regards to Broad Street.' Paul's band Wings -- which have should have no play in his SOLO inductee to the Hall -- guards really his only tolerable post-Beatles work: debatably 'Band on the Run,' 'With a Little Luck,' 'Live & Let Live,' 'Mull of Kintyre' (for the bagpipes). And, again, those do not count.
If the Hall has room for Paul's tedious solo outings, and allows vastly overrated Eric Clapton to get in twice -- as solo artist (which we reluctantly accept) and the two-year-running Cream (unforgivable) -- why can't Lou get in for Velvet Underground (happened; 1996) and his long-lasting, often interesting and challenging solo career? Lou's Transformer album (1972) is his most famous -- produced by Bowie, with 'Walk on the Wild Side' (jazz and drag?), 'Satellite of Love' and 'Vicious,' while the under-appreciated 1973 concept album Berlin is likely the most depressing of all time -- try 'The Kids' or 'The Bed,' where the narrator sits on the bed where his ex 'slit her wrists' and rethinks what went wrong. More importantly, Lou fell into an often hilarious wave of self-destruction, with the incredibly inconquerable double-live album Take No Prisoners, where his 20-minute version of 'Wild Side' lashes out at the audience and never gets into the song, or his double-album noise instrumental album Metal Machine Music (1976). (Later he'd make a video -- 'Video Violence' -- of a Lou Reed 'robot' pulling its face apart...) There are misfires -- and galling disasters (like his most recent Edgar A Poe concept album The Raven), and too many cover shots with his mug on the cover, but his 27 years of solo recordings have been ambitious and way out of the curve.
The FBO asks:
--> Put Lou in now (or take Paul, and Jackson Browne!, out now). Surely his work has out thought, influenced and performed a Bob Seger?
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3 comments:
I object! Not to anything to do directly with Sir Paul or squirrel-punchin' Lou, but to the FBO spending time criticizing Rock 'n' Roll Hall Of Fame choices. That's some awfully low-hanging fruit for such an ambitious Web site.
If you're going to take on the R'n'R H o' F, at least ignore the easy questions (Lou yes, Paul no) and take on the difficult issues that the institute raises. For example, who is less deserving of induction into the Hall: Bob Seger or ZZ Top?
The Top has "Tush" working for it, but "Legs" working against it; "La Grange" working for it and "Pearl Necklace" negating anything good they ever did.
Seger inspired many an Adam Klein improvisation via "Night Moves" which works both in his favor and against him.
1) Seger wrote "Shakedown" which, like Pearl necklace, negates anything good.
2) When Seger got inducted into the RnRHoF he did NOT invite or even call the Silver Bullet Band, which had writing credits on all of his hits (except Shakedown) - the sign of a true prick.
3) Seger's "Best Of" album has 3 previously unreleased songs (???)!
Ok, I was going to be content never making a post to this site and just soaking up the brilliance that is Rob's prose, but I have to chime in here.
Lou Reed should never, ever, ever be in the Hall. But will.
I can only think of a single Lou song that is even remotely tolerable, and that is the epic "Sweet Jane".
One of the most overrated artists I can think of. I always seem to lump him into the category of "I should like him because I'm artsy-fartsy and all artsy-fartsy people should like him".
And while we're on the subject, Rod Stewart's "Forever Young" negates everything he's done, including his sexy disco-goodness.
But then again, there are some who think that Elvis ruined his credibility when he started with the "In the Ghetto" stuff, although some people like the jumpsuit-era Elvis. To each his own, I suppose, but I'll take early Elvis any day.
And Pearl Necklace wasn't so bad. Now Sleeping Bag, now that was bad.
And as I write this, Subdivisions is on my XM. But that's for another topic on this blog.
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