Sweet, Wild and Vicious

Listening to Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground

De: Jim Higgins

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Between the Velvet Underground and his long solo career, Lou Reed released nearly 50 original albums. Sweet, Wild and Vicious delves into each one with descriptions, detail, analysis and appraisals that offer a fresh way to understand and appreciate them. This listener's guide is both personal and definitive, a smart and thoughtful and balanced consideration of Reed's work.

Praise for Sweet, Wild and Vicious:

A voracious listener and gifted writer, Jim Higgins contextualizes Reed's life and aesthetic in a way that illuminates the world he created between the headphones. His recordings finally get the book they deserve. An essential addition to our understanding and appreciation of Reed/Velvets.
— Greg Kot (Sound Opinions co-host)

Replete with gimlet-eyed observations and a true fan's infectious enthusiasm, Higgins' survey of Reed's solo years is simultaneously a wild ride and a scholarly account of a complex and legendary canon. Bold and essential.
— Elizabeth Nelson (singer-songwriter, The Paranoid Style)

As fits his subject, Higgins engages at street level, weaving carefully researched details, sharp original descriptions of the music and reactions from artists (and tastemakers) into a thorough exploration of the sonic realms this icon visited -- and then owned.
— Tom Moon (author of the New York Times bestseller 1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die)

Higgins' book celebrates the Velvet Underground's magical group of musicians and then proceeds to follow the many enigmas that is Lou Reed. The audience that adores Reed will enjoy the way Higgins listens and responds to the recordings.
—Victor DeLorenzo (actor, writer, musician and founding member of the Violent Femmes)

A heroic job of navigating the choppy and complicated waters of Lou Reed’s recorded history. Putting his spin on the good, the bad and the ugly contained in the grooves, Higgins takes no prisoners. This book will make you want to go back and listen to the records one more time with fresh ears — and ain’t that what it’s all about!
—musician Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate, Baseball Project, solo)

While underlining the contradictions and complexities of Reed’s brilliance and persona(e), Higgins accepts and embraces the totality of the artist with profound awe. I got chills reading about songs that, through Higgins’s words, I vividly heard echoing in the lost halls of my heart. A must-have for Lou Reed fans….
— Tammy Faye Starlite (singer, performer and Nico channeler)