Lou Reed’s ‘Transformer’, the only album that truly petrified David Bowie
David Bowie practically made it a habit of deconstructing everything about his music. Even though he had a winning streak being one of the kings of glam rock, ‘The Starman’ figured out long ago that having hits doesn’t mean that they can’t be erased and sculpted into something completely different. That’s the whole reason why his legacy has been so flexible, but when he got the call to work with this legend, it was enough to leave Bowie shaking in his boots before he even walked into the studio.
Then again, Bowie was never someone to back down from a challenge. Considering the kind of music he preferred to listen to, he was far more interested in making songs that stirred people up and made the audience think rather than the tunes that were thrown together to get on the charts. Even when he made Let’s Dance, not many mainstream artists would have put something like ‘Cat People’ on one of their albums.
But that creative spirit can only come from someone who learned to defy the status quo. Bowie was known to play around with everyone’s perceptions of how someone should dress, write, and even conduct themselves during interviews, but that had been nothing new ever since Bob Dylan started shaking up the world. If Dylan began the punkish spirit, though, The Velvet Underground perfected it.
Despite Lou Reed being one of the founders of punk music, that was never his goal whenever he played the guitar. He knew what his music was capable of, but it was more interesting for him to see himself as an auditory artist than a proper musician, which explains why he would eventually ditch harmony altogether when making something as sonically offputting as Metal Machine Music.
After leaving the Velvet Underground, though, he needed an album that would establish his footing as a solo artist. While his self-titled record had some decent tunes on it, it was clear that he needed a bit more polish to get him over the edge, and for anyone looking to get a foothold in the era of glam rock on Transformer, it’s hard to find anyone better to serve as a producer than Bowie.
Bowie had even covered a few Velvet tunes during his prime, but he admitted that playing with someone like Reed was almost too precious for him, saying, “I was petrified that he said, ‘Yes’, that he would like to work with me in a producer capacity. I had so many ideas, and I felt so intimidated by my knowledge of the work he had already done…Lou had this great legacy of work.”
While there is always going to be pressure when working with your heroes, Bowie became the perfect complement to Reed’s slightly sarcastic voice, like the moment when he soars above him on the song ‘Satellite of Love’. If there’s one thing that he should be commended for, though, it’s letting Mick Ronson serve as an arranger, resulting in the perfectly simple strings in the back of ‘Perfect Day’.
Although Bowie and Reed were both masters of creating strange and warped sounds, Transformer is a classic example of minimalism being the best approach. There are many overblown moments to go around, but when Reed is writing tunes this direct, it’s better to capture the moment than make it sound like a showstopping rock and roll song.
