The record that made Lou Reed leave The Velvet Underground: “I didn’t belong there”
Popularity is a tricky concept for musicians like Lou Reed. It was never the fuel that lit the fire of his creativity, but rather the idea of speaking directly to the subcultures in which he existed. But in doing so with such originality, Reed’s popularity, particularly with The Velvet Underground, began to spread like wildfire.
The 1967 album The Velvet Underground & Nico changed nearly everything. Not just the careers of Lou Reed and the remaining members of the band, but culture as a whole. It saw the wild worlds of esoteric and forward-thinking art led by Reed and Andy Warhol collide in the city of New York. In one fell swoop, Reed and co had invented the idea of avant-garde rock and simultaneously placed an albatross around their necks.
While the commercial success of the record was relatively meagre, it sparked a cult reaction which ultimately grew the boundaries of the subgenre in which he existed, and so suddenly, Reed was thrust out of the shadows from which he intended to create and into a brighter spotlight.
The brightness of which intensified with the following records, White Light / White Heat and their self-titled third record. Without enjoying any of the commercial success that warranted it, Reed and co began to become cult figures that bothered the more it grew in strength. Baseless recognition and trendy acclaim were the complete antithesis of Reed’s career to date, and so he struggled to grapple with the burden of it.
As David Bowie himself explained, “It was Bob Dylan who brought a new kind of intelligence to pop songwriting, but then it was Lou [Reed] who had taken it even further and into the avant-garde.” Words that were clearly marked in the artistic consciousness of Reed, who understood that the avant-garde has no place in widespread acclaim. For him, there is a pursuit to shock, awe and challenge listeners, not appease.
So naturally, the fourth Velvet Underground record, Loaded, marked the end of Reed’s time in the band. Cultural history rightly reveres the album as one of the band’s best pieces, but that’s ultimately where the problem lied for Reed, who viewed the record as too accessible in its approach.
“I didn’t belong there,” Reed would later claim, justifying his departure. “I didn’t want to be in a mass pop national hit group with followers.”
The feeling of having amassed followers became clear to Reed after the band enjoyed a successful two-month residency at New York’s Max’s Kansas City in the summer of 1970. Upon finishing the show, he boldly informed his bandmates that his time in the band was up and he would return to the pursuit of the avant-garde through his solo music.
Many would rightly argue that Reed’s subsequent solo career didn’t exactly veer away from that methodology, writing and releasing albums that showcased pop commercialism and sonic experimentation in equal measure. But the difference was, doing it as a solo artist gave Reed a reinvigorated feeling of freedom that would help bring out his best work.
