Lou Reed once refused to work with MGMT
The late Lou Reed was always open to the idea of collaboration. Throughout his career, the Velvet Underground musician worked with various unexpected names ranging from Gorillaz to Metallica. However, when MGMT came calling, Reed resisted the invitation from founding members Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser.
At the time, MGMT were flying high following the international success of their debut album, Oracular Spectacular, and they wanted to include one of their heroes as part of the follow-up. The duo held back from rushing into making the album, and fans were forced to wait three years in order to hear Congratulations, signalling a stark departure from their hit debut as the band moved deeper into psychedelia.
Despite Reed’s hesitation, he did agree to meet the band over breakfast, and they discussed their plans for him on the project. The song MGMT pitched to Reed was the album’s penultimate track, ‘Lady Dada’s Nightmare’, an effort which ended up as an instrumental. However, initially, the song was intended to include a spoken word section by the former Velvet Underground leader.
“We had a breakfast meeting with Lou Reed because we wanted him to do spoken-word over ‘Lady Dada’s Nightmare’, and he pretty much said it didn’t need it,” the band’s Andrew VanWyngarden explained in 2018 during an appearance on The Best Show podcast.
In Reed’s mind, the song didn’t need any additional material and was already perfectly adequate. However, to me, his response seems to be an excuse not to contribute to ‘Lady Dada’s Nightmare’ because the song is crying out for another layer.
Before leaving the breakfast, Reed did offer MGMT some unsolicited advice which made the situation even more awkward. VanWyngarden recalled how the musician told the group “how we didn’t need managers” despite “our managers” being in attendance.
Despite Reed having no interest in working alongside MGMT, it was still a pleasant experience for the group. VanWyngarden conceded: “But at least we got to meet him”. Fortunately, they enjoyed another encounter before Reed’s passing and later saw him at the Westminster Dog Show in New York. “We kind of, like, dressed up like dandies,” VanWyngarden laughed. “We were just being really silly. Fred had on a top hat, and I had on a velvet jacket and a scarf and gloves. I had a notepad. I was taking notes on the dogs.”
While it would have been magnificent to hear Lou Reed add spoken word over MGMT’s ‘Lady Dada’s Nightmare’, the late mercurial artist never accepted a project he didn’t wholly believe in, and that’s what made him so great. It’s the same principle which convinced Reed to collaborate with Metallica, much to everyone’s surprise, and the reason why he became an experimental icon.
