Not a Perfect Day for the rest of us...!
P.S. The media reaction to Mr Reed's death has been interesting. Yesterday he was pretty much the lead story on every US and UK news site that I visited. There's also been a deluge of eulogies and it would appear Mr Reed is up for sainthood in some circles. And there's also a lot of rubbish being written by, I suspect, music critics who were born a long time after the Beatles broke up. One statement I read was that he'd "changed the musical landscape". Harrumph! What nonsense! What he did do was help to keep a gritty lo-fi form of rock going in the face of complex (and sometimes, dare I say it, pretentious) music from prog bands; his forte was dark, poetic, lyrics that equalled or exceeded those of Jim Morrison or the emerging Bruce Springsteen. His genius was to combine his words with exciting but simple musical arrangements. Nirvana, The Smiths, Sheryl Crowe, U2 and any number of punk/indie bands owe him a debt of gratitude. Musical minimalism and gritty storytelling will forever be his trademark. One of his best quotes is: "One chord is fine. Two chords are pushing it. Three chords, and you're into jazz." Indeed!
RIP, Mr Reed.
P.S. The media reaction to Mr Reed's death has been interesting. Yesterday he was pretty much the lead story on every US and UK news site that I visited. There's also been a deluge of eulogies and it would appear Mr Reed is up for sainthood in some circles. And there's also a lot of rubbish being written by, I suspect, music critics who were born a long time after the Beatles broke up. One statement I read was that he'd "changed the musical landscape". Harrumph! What nonsense! What he did do was help to keep a gritty lo-fi form of rock going in the face of complex (and sometimes, dare I say it, pretentious) music from prog bands; his forte was dark, poetic, lyrics that equalled or exceeded those of Jim Morrison or the emerging Bruce Springsteen. His genius was to combine his words with exciting but simple musical arrangements. Nirvana, The Smiths, Sheryl Crowe, U2 and any number of punk/indie bands owe him a debt of gratitude. Musical minimalism and gritty storytelling will forever be his trademark. One of his best quotes is: "One chord is fine. Two chords are pushing it. Three chords, and you're into jazz." Indeed!
RIP, Mr Reed.
2 comments:
very sad to hear this news. have always loved "Transformer" and only realised yesterday that BOwie was involved in its production
I don't have Transformer but I do have a "Best of" (that I don't think is) compilation that includes Walk on the Wild Side. Today I ordered the Velvet Underground with Nico CD from Amazon. That's the one with the Warhol banana on the cover. Back in 1970 I found it so dark it was almost scary.
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