Lou Reed: Sally Can't Dance - A Weak Album?

Yeah, I get it, but it's a terrible line. There's just no way to make "foliage" rhyme with "college" without severely mispronouncing either one or both of them.

 

I'll be in that thread. I really like "Mistrial".

 

I found this album by the side of the road, literally, with a few others. Evidently someone moved out in a hurry. It was in good shape so I snagged it. Played it once and returned it to the same place I found it. Can't really remember anything but the title tune, which was embarrassingly awful, but the whole album made me want to vomit.

 

Haha, maybe not. It sounds a bit Dylanish, and Dylan has loads of bad rhymes. But bad rhymes can be amusing and I just reaĺly like the song and the story.

 

Trout Mask Replica had that effect on me, sadly

 

Animal language is crap, the rest is brilliant.

 

you understood the album perfectly then. That feeling is what all the songs are about, which is why it has the reputation of being a "bad" album.

 

Ride Sally Ride has very good singing from Lou. The arrangements are very conventional, which are in direct contrast with the lyrics, which are often caustic and cynical.

The album is a trashy gem, and is much better than Lou and the critics suggest.

 

Personally I never much cared for the album. "Kill Your Sons" is the only canonical song and I never liked studio rock 70s arrangements, then again mid-70s Reed is my least favorite Lou Reed era generally. I rarely find myself listening to the material Lou put out between Transformer and Street Hassle.

 

I think it's Peter Doggett's book on Lou Reed that devotes several pages of analysis to that track. The song is perhaps the best example of what @jwoverho is calling the trashy brilliance of the album. It would have gone great with a Ralph Bakshi promo film...

 

It's one of my all time favorites by him. When I'm in that Lou Reed mood, it's my go to album. I like a lot of his stuff, but this one is one of the top 5.

 

I just bought the 2001 remastered cd and despite its being a somewhat hot remaster I consider it THE best LReed album ever. Sleazy, urgent, depressive, decadent R&R the way early R&R was meant to be. I used to own the 8T cart 30 something years ago and it sounds to me now as fresh as it did then when I was a young gun. Dunno what else to say; this album strikes an inner chord in my mind.

Baby Face, Kill Your Sons, Billy, killer, killer !! And the 2 bonus tracks are to die for.

 

2/5, and that's because I'm in a good mood.

 

I love this album, but... I love this post!

 

Now that Lou is gone, it seems to be that suddenly there is nothing "bad" that he did ...... All his albums are gifts. (no pun intended)

 

This is such a mixed bag of an album, at times sounding like it was patched together from remnants of Transformer and Berlin, while being a bit of a coming attraction for Coney Island Baby or The Bells, with a bit of what Jobriath was doing at the same time. It all works, coming together as a kind of vicious then wistful then rueful take on what was going on around Lou at the time. He's looking at what he sees on the street and in his own mirror, as usual, and you really have to listen to get to the feel of the thing. It's not an easy album to embrace, but very rewarding if you're in the mood to give it a chance. After Berlin I guess people were expecting another glam slam but what they got instead was a vodka on the rocks tossed in their face.

 

I'm pretty sure you can find a thread just like this from before his death.

 

who's that?

zing!

 

Based in NYC, Jobriath was a gay singer/songwriter in the early 70's who got a major push from his record company and manager before crashing and burning from the over hype. His 2 albums, Jobriath and Creatures of the Street are either truly lost classics of glam/pop/Broadway tunes and ahead of their time(according to Morrissey and Michael Stipe), or they suck, depending on who you talk to. There's a certain feel on Sally... that reminds me of those albums which came out in 1973 and 1974. Just my take.

 

NY Stars is contender for my favourite post-VU Reed vocal, he sounds so rightly decayed, knowing and arrogant as he disses some useless and superficial scene, fantastic song.

I don't care what Lou or the critics thought of it, I love the album.

 

So far, some posts are sparking old memories of:

1) Back in the early 70s, I remember reading many Rock music album reviews where the reviewer(s) wrote a lot on the"rhymes" that were not true rhymes. That often made up the bulk of these reviews. I could tell by the tone that it made the reviewer(s) angry. I found that very far from anything I judged albums by and was quite mystified why this was happening in print. (I can't remember if it was multiple or a singular magazine(s)/reviewer(s). It was many reviews though.)

2) In Art Dudley's Listener magazine, he had an ongoing thing where on the bottom left of random pages in random issues he put something like:

C:\Lou Reed\Crap Lyrics\Take off your pants, don't you know this is a party.

I remember thinking, yeah - reading Art's selected lines - I see what he means. But listening to the sung lines in the context of the song, they seemed just fine.

 

Me too!

(on a similar theme, Lou / Metallica Lulu made me feel a bit ill, I must admit, but I love it, really. Not trying to be wacky or different, really I love some horror films too, nobody told me everything I like will make me feel good, and I wouldn't believe them if they ever did).

 

I've always assumed he wrote it about the New York Dolls.

 

Consider the source. Weak Lou Reed album, yes. Weak album by most other standards, no. Had Justin Beber made such an album we'd already be on the fourth reissue with out takes.

 

Lulu is the first Lou Reed album that I did not buy. That was based on listening to samples from it.

I may end up getting (and listening to) it at some point.