Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed[1] (born March 2, 1942) is an American rock musician best known as the guitarist, vocalist and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground as well as a successful solo artist whose career has spanned several decades. The band gained little mainstream attention during their career, but became one of the most influential of their era.[2] As the Velvet Underground's main songwriter, Reed analyzed subjects of personal experience that rarely had been examined so openly in rock and roll, including a variety of sexual topics and drug culture and use. As a guitarist, he was a pioneer of many guitar effects including distortion, high volume feedback, and nonstandard tunings.
Reed began a long and eclectic solo career in 1971. He had a hit the following year with "Walk on the Wild Side", though for more than a decade he seemed to wilfully evade the mainstream commercial success its chart status offered him.[3] One of rock's most volatile personalities, Reed's work as a solo artist has frustrated critics wishing for a return of The Velvet Underground. The most notable example is 1975's infamous double LP of recorded feedback loops, Metal Machine Music, upon which Reed later commented: "No one is supposed to be able to do a thing like that and survive." By the late 1980s, however, he had garnered recognition as an elder statesman of rock.
* Lou Reed (1972)
* Transformer (1972)
* Berlin (1973)
* Sally Can't Dance (1974)
* Metal Machine Music (1975)
* Coney Island Baby (1976)
* Rock and Roll Heart (1976)
* Street Hassle (1978)
* The Bells (1979)
* Growing Up in Public (1980)
* The Blue Mask (1982)
* Legendary Hearts (1983)
* New Sensations (1984)
* Mistrial (1986)
* New York (1989)
* Magic and Loss (1992)
* Set the Twilight Reeling (1996)
* Ecstasy (2000)
* The Raven (2003)
* Hudson River Wind Meditations (2007)
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Subject: Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed 
Sun Jul 12, 2009 3:33 am
