Terça-feira 7 Jan 2014, 8h:26
2000s
“Warhol said that it’s too bad in school they don’t have a course about love, like practical stuff. Or maybe one on loss, like what do you do with yourself, who do you ask, where do you turn.” – Lou Reed
After “New York” Lou Reed had adopted two new habits that made it appear as if he was determined not to make any new fans. Firstly he had stopped even trying to sing (contrast with some of the songs on “The Bells” where he tries too hard) and now he just spoke his lyrics occasionally with a hint of emotion, but more-often –than-not just in his standard dead-pan. Secondly his albums and begun to get overly long and slowly gained in pretentiousness. In the 90s the albums had increased from standard record length (40 minutes or thereabouts) to an hour, which was manageable, but in 2000 Lou Reed released “Ecstasy”, a full cd’s worth of music (80 minutes).
“Ecstasy” is the set-up for every remaining project of Lou Reed’s career and despite its length it is in fact the shortest proper-project he worked on in the last 13 years of his life (bar one). On “Ecstasy” he returned to songs about love, the main subject matter of 1996’s “Set The Twilight Reeling”. But “Ecstasy” is darker, it is paranoia, infidelity, jealousy, hypocritical rage, marriage without wanting children and… being a possum.
“Ecstasy”’s beautiful moments are frequent and that sets it apart from not only the albums that would follow, but almost any and every Lou Reed-related album since The Velvet Underground’s self-titled third album. The strings that permeate the title track as it nears its conclusion make the track one of Lou Reed’s very best.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNgOibkmo5Y
At Hop Farm Lou Reed played a version of “Ecstasy” that lasted 10 minutes, its riff rotating hypnotically as Reed narrated and described the fleeting nature of ecstasy. Some Morrissey fans that were even uglier on the inside than on the outside could and would not stop mouthing off during Lou Reed’s entire time on stage (and Magazine’s and Patti Smith’s for that matter), but even they were silenced by the overwhelming pretentiousness (but admittedly one that worked very well) of 10 minutes of lamenting Ecstasy.
The 2000s have been difficult to write about (practically, rather than emotionally) since I don’t own “The Raven” in either of its forms (the two hour-long album about the works of Edgar Allen Poe featuring, amongst others, David Bowie, Willem Dafoe, Steve Buscemi, Antony Hegarty and Laurie Anderson) and “Hudson River Wind Meditations” is very difficult on the grounds that it is a meditation album, sparse yet droney, like a stripped down “Metal Machine Music”. There is little to latch onto and it is definitely sub-par compared to, say, Brian Eno’s ambient works.
(Photo: Lou Reed goes for a "wild ride")
http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/500/70519832/Lou+Reed+LouReedTakingBikeRideWildSideA.jpg
