Lou Reed
Ecstasy
(Reprise)
Back in 1996, Lou the lovebird was
making hooky wooky with a new flame
and pledging that he'd hang on to his emotions. But scarcely four years
later, he's got the blue mask on again, and slashing, probing, cajoling
and roaring his way through the psychic detritus of a romance turned
rote, he succeeds in making it sound like 1982 all over again. With the
longest-lived and fiercest band of his solo career egging him on, Reed
careens from paranoid to pastoral, infidelity to introspection, and
proves once and for all that his great subject isn't the mean streets
of urban civilization but the dark alleys of the human heart. If he has
his self-indulgent moments - and no, the 18-minute noise-blues opus
"Like a Possum" isn't one of them - well, he's earned them.
He's a legend pushing 60 who refuses to go quietly, a practitioner of
a pop culture form who still believes you can fashion challenging art
out of the three chords. So when he bellows, "I'm the only one
left standing/Shooting and coming 'til it hurts," that's not the
sad braggadocio of a middle-aged burn out. It's the sound of rock and
roll's great spiritual malcontent raging against the dying of the
light, and pissing on the plot of musical ground that almost no one
working the form today has the balls to contest.
Rating: 9
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