Next up! (wiki) The Blue Mask is the eleventh solo studio album by American musician Lou Reed. It was the first album released after Reed had left Arista Records and returned to RCA Records. The album was released around Reed's 40th birthday, and covers topics of marriage and settling down,[1] alongside themes of violence, paranoia, and alcoholism. Production and recording Reed and Robert Quine's guitars were mixed separately in the right and left stereo channels respectively. To differentiate his guitar's sound from Reed's, Quine used D tuning, playing each song as if it was one major second higher. For example, "Heavenly Arms" is in G major, so Quine used fingerings for A major to play the song. Quine, who years earlier followed the Velvet Underground across the country and taped several of their early shows (they were later released as Bootleg Series Volume 1: The Quine Tapes), made for a suitable complement to Reed. Quine also toured in support of the album and can be seen on the recorded The Bottom Line show titled A Night with Lou Reed. Quine later described the album as, "a record that I'm particularly proud of. We had never played together before going into the studio. There were no rehearsals and most of it was done in one or two takes. I like all the things that I've done with Lou but that will always be special for me."[10] Quine and Reed share the distinction of being named to Rolling Stone's Top 100 Guitarists of All-Time List. Fernando Saunders, who subsequently became a longtime Reed collaborator, plays the bass and adds backing vocals (most noticeably, a falsetto refrain in the outro to "Heavenly Arms") to this album and can also be seen in A Night with Lou Reed. Saunders later said, "it was like a dream come true. Lou wanted me to play the things no one would ever let me play, the things I would sit in my bedroom and play. Suddenly I was glad I hadn't quit music for my uncle's insurance company."[11] The album contains no instrumental overdubs with the exception of Reed's guitar on "My House", but all vocals were overdubbed with the exception of "The Heroine". The drummer for the album was studio musician Doane Perry, who later joined Jethro Tull. The album cover was designed by Reed's then wife, Sylvia, and features a blue version of a photograph by Mick Rock from the cover art of 1972's Transformer. Critical reception In 2010, Jess Harvell off Pitchfork wrote: "1982's The Blue Mask, featuring guitarist Robert Quine's virtuoso blend of post-Reed skronk and speed-folkie melodicism, is still the one to slot alongside Transformer and Street Hassle. The album realigned Reed with the punk and new/no wave movements he helped sire, and it was helped into the canon by Reed's strongest (and most heart-wrenching) batch of songs in years."[12] NME said, "What made The Blue Mask Lou Reed’s watershed album was his choice of musicians, a new wave super-set of them – Fernando Saunders on bass, Doane Perry on drums, and the legendary Robert Quine on guitar.[13] Alternately, Barney Hoskyns said, "What grated on this was the smug sententiousness, the smarmy self-satisfaction that said: I may have been a bit of a jerk when I strutted around on stage with a needle in my arm, but I am now a bona fide Artist and you will treat me as such."[14] Track listing All songs written by Lou Reed Side one "My House" - 5:25 "Women" - 4:57 "Underneath the Bottle" - 2:33 "The Gun" - 3:41 "The Blue Mask" - 5:06 Side two "Average Guy" - 3:12 "The Heroine" - 3:06 "Waves of Fear" - 4:11 "The Day John Kennedy Died" - 4:08 "Heavenly Arms" - 4:47 Personnel Lou Reed – guitar, vocals Robert Quine – guitar Fernando Saunders – Bass guitar, backing vocals Doane Perry – drums Lou fires his old band and teams up with Quine to make one of his best albums. Pretty rare for an artist at this stage in his career to deliver something this good. My House: Great start. Lou is staring at geese, playing with a ouji board and finds Delmore Schwartz is living in his house. Beautiful song B++ Women: Filler for me. Nice guitar B Underneath the Bottle: Love it. Outstanding bass (actually Fernand0 is top notch throughout) Lous singing is on point 'I got bruises on my leg from I can't remember when' yep A The Gun: Lou plays a creepy gun thug incredibly well 'watch you wife' A- The Blue Mask: Overwhelming. the guitars towards to end are insane. A Average Guy: Taking the piss. Hilarious B++ The Heroine: Barebones folk story song B Waves of Fear: They played some smoking versions of this live. Lou and Quines guitars are something. A The Day John Kennedy Died: B+++ Heavenly Arms: Lou singing out his love for Sylvia. Nice bg vocals. A- the album is pretty much great throughout. Quine is a big reason why, not always sure what he's doing on guitar but it works
That was a very unusual cover at the time. The idea of referencing, appropriating or reusing iconic artwork from an early album hadn't been done before. Bowie did a more conceptual version of it much later on The Next Day with "Heroes".
Also Underneath the Bottle: “ooowee... son of a b...” Sometimes a performance can make the lyrics profound. Any progress on “Goodbye Charlie?” It sounds movie-esque to me, or Raymond Chandler.
the blue mask. an album i love who doesn't right? i just might not love it as much as some.certainly top 7 lou for me ,probably in 6,7 slot. the album where lou took sound and the studio to a serious level for sure. interesting that doane perry plays on this and man he slays it ! album just lacks a bit of cohesiveness to me but still great! hey we are talking lou reed here who well is as great as anyone right? also clearly sylvia's best graphic design work with lou for sure. anyone else would call this there singular masterpiece , for lou it's just one of many.
I don't have anything profound or particularly interesting to say, but this is among my favourite Lou albums... It has an intimacy or something that drew me into it and kept me there.
Best Lou Album since The Velvet Underground. Finally the quality of the music/instrumentation matches the quality of the songs/lyrics. I could get off on this album if it was purely instrumental and I can get off just reading the lyrics. Put it all together and it’s some of my favourite music ever made.
Oh yeah, story. I have a Blue Mask T-shirt and when I went to a Blue Man Group performance many years ago it seemed obvious to me as to what shirt to wear. After the show one of the Blue Mans caught a glimpse of my shirt and sort of freaked out, in a non-verbal sort of way. Anyway I always get a lot of “nice shirt’s” when I wear that, most likely from people who don’t know what it is.
I'm with Barney Hoskins on this one. The lyrics to 'Women' are a good example of how insufferable Reed had suddenly become with this album. And I don't believe a word of it. Don't much like the grunty tight-muscled manly 'serious' rock sound or vocal delivery either. Sorry, but I think better was to come.
I think his tongue is in his cheek on "Women" nearly as much as it is on "Average Guy". Sort of "Of course I like women, how dare you ask? I've always liked women, don't you know? Where do these questions about my sexual preferences come from?"
Hmm. I hope you're right but I can't read the sexual preference thing into the lyrics. It's more about 'respecting' women and rather feels like he's lecturing us and trying to convince himself. There's not one trace of humour or irony in there that i can detect.
Last night, I was in the mood to hear Metal Machine Music, so I threw on the headphones and found a copy on Youtube and greatly enjoyed it. I find that my appreciation of the work grows as I get older and my musical education expands. I can draw connections to the musical avant garde, to composers like Stockhausen and La Monte Young and Iannis Xenakis. What Lou Reed does is add rock 'n roll aggression, almost punk aggression, to the mix with his multiple looped layers of feedback and distortion. Upon first listen, it sounds like a wall of impenetrable noise, as though he just put a stack of amps and guitars into a recording studio and left the room for several hours. But upon closer inspection, one finds many variations in the sound and tones, interesting moments of harmonics (possibly created by clashing feedback) and even snippets of melodies that float in and out. The album takes the idea of ambient, or space music, or stoner music, or whatever one could call it in 1975, to its absolute extreme, and I greatly respect Reed for it. I honestly wish today's musicians would have the sheer guts to create something like this, if only to prove that it can be done. Music needs to evolve, it needs to stretch, and that sometimes means challenging our very ideas of music and sound. I'm reminded of all the recent recordings of the planets and stars, slowed down to the range of human hearing. Saturn and Jupiter sound a lot like this, and it's very fascinating to imagine another alien civilization who would hail that sound as their Bach or Mozart. Obviously, MMM isn't for everyone. Even one out of a hundred will recoil in horror. But it deserves to be heard in full, at least once in your lifetime, and respected. As always, I recommend the vinyl LP version for its richer analog sound, although the modern digital remaster will have its charms.
The Blue Mask was one of Lou's albums that I didn't hear until relatively recently, it's probably one I need to hear a few more times. You remember what it was like when you only had a few records and you knew them all intimately, most of Lou's 70s albums are like that for me. I absolutely love Underneath the Bottle, Woman leaves me cold. Lot's of other stuff I liked. I'll be back.
Blue Mask - Is he putting the mask on, or taking it off? Was he really just an 'average guy' now? Is Women an atonement or a parody? Dunno. Anyway, it's an album I really like. Reed and Quine work well together. Overall, BM has a quiet dignity and humbleness about it.