In defence of the five artists Lou Reed hated the most
Treat your ears and listen to the music of Lou Reed. His sound was great, his lyricism was so real, so honest, that every track felt like an individual and unique part of Reed that we were privileged enough to be let in on.
Whether he spoke about addiction, longing, mental health, love, New York, or anything else, he was totally transparent in his unrelenting devotion to truth. His inability to lie within his music bled through into the real world as well, as when Reed was asked for his opinion on different artists of the time, he was brutal in his assessment of them.
Many popular bands and artists were on the receiving end of Reed’s sharp tongue. He had choice words to say about the likes of The Who, The Doors and even The Beatles, so much so that it only feels right that one of us steps in, in a bid to defend the artists that Reed so gleefully slagged off.
Some of his comments might be valid, but others seem far off the mark, and are more a representation of his hatred for specific scenes and people rather than the band themselves. Here are five of the biggest bands that Lou Reed had a problem with and our defence of them.
In defence of the artists that Lou Reed hated
Roxy Music
“I don’t like em’.” Lou Reed was pretty blunt in his criticism of glam rock outfit Roxy Music. Seeing them support David Bowie and Reed claimed that the band weren’t just boring but were ripping him off.
“I saw them at the Bowie concert and we were all there waiting to be impressed,” he said. “They bored me, and I went out half-way to get a drink. I’ve heard some of the other stuff that’s supposed to be up my alley. But they don’t know what they’re talking about. I’ve been doing this stuff a long time, and all of a sudden people are starting to talk about it. They’re saying: ‘Hey, look, we’re civilised, man, and we want to know about it.’”
His critique seems overly harsh. Roxy Music weren’t exactly the dirt under your fingernail that the Velvet Underground were. But to label them as boring is a little overzealous. The complex nature of some of their music, and the way the band layered their sound to create something unlike that which others had stumbled across before, deserves recognition, not hatred.
The Who
The Who have made a lot of great music in their career, but one of their biggest achievements came at the end of the ‘60s with the release of their triumphant concept album, Tommy.
How do you even begin to praise a record like this appropriately? It took the idea of a concept album and expanded upon it, showing people just how much could be achieved within the run time of an album. However, despite the iconic nature of this album, Lou Reed wasn’t impressed.
“Tommy is such – Jesus, how people get sucked into that,” said Reed. “So talentless, and as a lyricist [Townshend is] so profoundly untalented, and, you know, philosophically boring to say the least… like the record ‘The Searcher’ [meaning ‘The Seeker’]; ‘I ask Timothy Leary…’, I wouldn’t ask Timothy Leary the time of day, for cryin’ out loud.”
Frank Zappa
It’s incredibly difficult not to be impressed by the musical output of Frank Zappa. His defiant refusal to abide by modern trends and his constant desire to look for the most exciting ways to make music is something to marvel at. Lou Reed disagreed, as he called Zappa untalented and pretentious.
This feels like a lazy way to describe Zappa. You might not necessarily enjoy them, but Zappa’s ideas might have been ambitious and out-there at times, but to flat-out call him untalented seems forced.
“He’s probably the single most untalented person I’ve heard in my life,” said Reed, “He’s a two-bit pretentious academic, and he can’t play his way out of anything […] He can’t play rock ‘n’ roll because he’s a loser. And that’s why he dresses up funny. He’s not happy with himself, and I think he’s right.”
The Doors
The Doors were lumped in with a herd of insults as Lou Reed took jabs at some of his rock contemporaries. He described them as “Just painfully stupid and pretentious, and when they did try to get ‘arty’, it was worse than stupid rock ‘n’ roll,” he said, “What I mean by ‘stupid’. I mean, like, The Doors.”
His hatred seems to stem from a commitment to realism and New York, rather than a genuine hatred for The Doors.
“We had vast objections to the whole San Francisco scene,” he once explained, “It’s just tedious, a lie and untalented.” The psychedelic stylings of The Doors was groundbreaking and great to listen to, Reed let his own personal leanings get in the way of listening to the music as a sole offering.The Doors deserve a lot more credit than Reed was willing to give them here.
The Beatles
Finally, we have The Beatles. Lou Reed isn’t the first person to say that The Beatles are overrated, and he won’t be the last. The incorrect statement is laundered by music lovers attempting to radiate cool so frequently that it barely deserves recognition. They weren’t overrated, they were pioneers in sound, marketing, and overall vision. However, when Lou Reed was asked about The Fab Four, he said, rather blase, “No, no, I never liked the Beatles […] I thought they were rubbish.”
For my retort I would refer to Lou Reed once again. It seems the punk poet was unable to make up his mind on the band, as when he spoke about them a decade before the interview when he claimed they were rubbish, he had nothing but positive things to say about the band.
“They just make the songs up, bing, bing, bing,” he said, “They have to be the most incredible songwriters ever – just amazingly talented. I don’t think people realise just how sad it is that the Beatles broke up.”
