So why is Lou Reed’s Transformer on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
Transformer is one of those albums where I start blinking rapidly when looking at the track listing as I’m simply in awe that so many iconic songs are all on the same album.
As incredible as the work that Lou Reed put in with The Velvet Underground is, Transformer is the masterpiece I’d point to as the single greatest album he ever made.
“Vicious,” “Perfect Day,” “Walk on the Wild Side,” “Satellite of Love.”
It’s a ridiculous bounty of riches that take us on a dark and raunchy and delightful and sublime tour through New York City’s gritty and glam and shady underworld circa the early ‘70s.
New York in the early ‘70s was a very specific time in the city’s history. As this NYC history website puts it, it was a time period “deeply shaped by a profound fiscal crisis, alongside a remarkable cultural renaissance and a surge in urban activism.” Meanwhile, the optimism of the hippie counterculture had deflated under Nixon and the war in Vietnam slogged on.
Within this cauldron of things going on, New York City became a breeding ground for incredible and forward-leaning music that would influence things for decades to come: glam rock, proto-punk, dance music and disco.
Now put that all together with this: “lightning in a bottle” is a cliché that gets overused (often by your humble narrator!). But it’s apt here as we have, quoting Pitchfork, Lou Reed in 1972, “a penniless, strung-out wreck, with a career suddenly and seriously on the wane,” teaming up with a young wunderkind (fresh off of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust, #251 of best 1,000 albums ever) and Velvet Underground superfan in David Bowie.
Bowie and guitarist Mick Ronson sign on to produce Transformer and that becomes the magic ingredient – the stardust if you will – that helps elevate the album into stratospheric territories.
The collaboration of Reed, Bowie, and Ronson helped create a singular cultural hinge between ‘60s psychedelia and The Velvet Underground’s art scene experimentation, ’70s decadence, and the seeds of punk rock and grunge to come.
There’s something that’s so clean and yet gritty at the same time about the album’s production. I know that description is a bit contradictory, but I think you’ll feel me when listening to “Vicious,” for example: it’s one of the quietest songs that still rocks super hard at the same time. I think it’s one of Lou Reed’s superpowers, in fact. There are hints of punk and singer-songwriter and even folk grunge that shine through.
The dirtiness, the grunge that’s picked up on “Vicious” sounds pristine and incredible. Still alive as all hell over half a century later.
Kurt Cobain’s astonishing Unplugged performance with Nirvana stands on the shoulders of giants, and one of them is Lou Reed’s “Vicious.”
And yeah, I’m well aware that “Vicious” is probably the fourth best known song on Transformer even among those who are still hip to Lou Reed’s work these days.
“Walk on the Wild Side” is one of those songs that feels like it has been with me my entire life. I have a childhood memory of playing around with song titles and puzzling over “Walk on the Wild Side” versus “Wild Thing” by The Troggs versus “Born to Be Wild” by Steppenwolf. Perhaps I was born to be… a chronicler of the best 1,000 albums ever from the start.
Anyway, “Walk on the Wild Side,” much like “Perfect Day,” is deceptively pleasant-sounding on the surface. I wouldn’t go so far as to say cheerful as there’s a tension buried under the surface of Reed’s performance. But the melody is so simple and catchy and lulling that it’s easy to miss that Reed is taking us to corners of the human experience where the normies, to use today’s parlance, never dare to tread.
Little Joe never once gave it away
Everybody had to pay and pay
A hustle here and a hustle there
New York City is the place where they said
“Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side”
I think it’s also important to note that the song isn’t trying to be ironic or sarcastic, there’s no shtick or artifice involved. Reed is simply inviting us on a tour of things he’s seen – and even experienced maybe.
“Perfect Day” inverts expectations in a different way. Musically, it’s deeply melancholy, slow, even brooding. And Reed’s performance matches the music. However, the lyrics are cheerful, literally about a perfect day spent with a loved one or close friend.
But then the outro hits with its repeated line of you’re going to reap just what you sow. It’s moving and mysterious and ever so slightly chilling.
I’m reminded here of Devo’s wonderfully subversive “Beautiful World” with its pointed insertion of for you.
“Perfect Day” is leveraged to maximum effect in the movie Trainspotting in 1996, playing wickedly against Mark Renton’s (Ewan McGregor) struggles with heroin addiction.
And speaking of Lou Reed and movies, he comes up often in Adventureland (1996), one of my favorite movies of all time. Ryan Reynolds has a small but important role as a wannabe musician who works at a ramshackle amusement park. He tries to build up his own mythos by claiming he once jammed with Reed… except he can’t even get his hero’s song titles straight.
The beautiful and oddly uplifting “Satellite of Love” is featured in the movie.
“I’m So Free” is glam rocking and proto-punk in a way that I’d imagine The New York Dolls would very much approve of.
On a final note, as a Sopranos superfan in good standing, of course I listened to every episode of the companion podcast, Talking Sopranos, hosted by cast members Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa.
I mention this because Imperioli mentions several times that he and Lou Reed were close friends over a number of years. I enjoy thinking about what these two quintessentially New York City dudes talked about across music, movies, art, and life.
Some stats & info about Lou Reed – Transformer
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, Album Rock, Hard Rock, Glam Rock, Pop Music, Singer-Songwriter, Proto-Punk
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – #109
- All Music’s rating – 4.5 out of 5 stars
- When was Transformer released? 1972
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #42 out of 1,000
Lou Reed’s Transformer on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from Lou Reed’s Transformer that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.