Frank Black’s favourite Lou Reed album
Sam Fogarino of the band Interpol once told Q Magazine in 2011 that he thought Pixies were the most influential band of the last 25 years. He said when he first listened to them, he said: “I felt vile, then I felt violated, then I thought it was the most brilliant fucking thing since sliced bread and that hasn’t changed because it’s ageless music and that’s a very rare thing to stumble upon.” The exact same can be said of Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground.
Pixies frontman Frank Black is a huge admirer of Reed and his work and there is certainly a kinship between the stars. As David Bowie once said: “Three elements, I think, made them important is the sound of the band which is the pure dynamics of keeping the verse extremely quiet and then erupting into a blaze of noise for the choruses.” It’s hard to tell whether he’s talking about Pixies or the Velvet Underground (he’s talking about Pixies).
You can hear Reed’s influence in Black’s work, which perhaps is why it’s no surprise that he ranks one of his records amongst his favourites. Speaking of Sally Can’t Dance, Black said: “I heard this record in my college dorm, courtesy of [Pixies guitarist] Joey Santiago,” he commented.
Adding: “I knew that I liked the record but when I got into listening to it again, some years ago, I realised: I know the record really well. I really like the production and sound of it. It’s very toppy and it’s got some really good sounds. It’s very thin, ’70s rock radio production.”
It is somewhat of an oddity in the annals of history that Sally Can’t Dance remains Lou Reed’s highest-charting album in the USA having risen to 10th in the Billboard charts. Amid a rapid string of brilliant albums, it stands out as his least ambitious, but the fact it provides catchy rock hits is testimony to his strength as a straightforward songwriter.
Beneath the slapdash surface is Reed’s bleached blonde punk attitude pushing wannabes and imitators to the curb with swaggering ease. He borrowed from the emerging world of glam rock to add his ever-present keen eye to proceedings and crafted singles like ‘Animal Language’ and the title track to prove that even when he isn’t trying that hard he’s still streets ahead of most.
It is this that Black heralded from the get-go. On the Pixies’ 1987 debut Come On Pilgrim, Black sang, “I wanna be a singer like Lou Reed.” It’s fair to say that he’s a writer like him too.
