Lou Reed

A Life

By: Anthony DeCurtis

Narrated by: Peter Coleman

Length: 16 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

The essential biography of one of music's most influential icons: Lou Reed

As lead singer and songwriter for the Velvet Underground and a renowned solo artist, Lou Reed invented alternative rock. His music, at once a source of transcendent beauty and coruscating noise, violated all definitions of genre while speaking to millions of fans and inspiring generations of musicians.

But while his iconic status may be fixed, the man himself was anything but. Lou Reed's life was a transformer's odyssey. Eternally restless and endlessly hungry for new experiences, Reed reinvented his persona, his sound, even his sexuality time and again. A man of contradictions and extremes, he was fiercely independent yet afraid of being alone, artistically fearless yet deeply paranoid, eager for commercial success yet disdainful of his own triumphs. Channeling his jagged energy and literary sensibility into classic songs - like "Walk on the Wild Side" and "Sweet Jane" - and radically experimental albums alike, Reed remained desperately true to his artistic vision, wherever it led him.

Now, just a few years after Reed's death, Rolling Stone writer Anthony DeCurtis, who knew Reed and interviewed him extensively, tells the provocative story of his complex and chameleonic life. With unparalleled access to dozens of Reed's friends, family, and collaborators, DeCurtis tracks Reed's five-decade career through the accounts of those who knew him and through Reed's most revealing testimony: his music. We travel deep into his defiantly subterranean world, enter the studio as the Velvet Underground record their groundbreaking work, and revel in Reed's relationships with such legendary figures as Andy Warhol, David Bowie, and Laurie Anderson. Gritty, intimate, and unflinching, Lou Reed is an illuminating tribute to one of the most incendiary artists of our time.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2017 Anthony DeCurtis (P)2017 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"I am personally familiar with the depth, seriousness, and sensitivity of Anthony DeCurtis's writing, and, of course, knew Lou Reed and felt the impact of his coruscating work. A brilliant artist has found a biographer with the insight to, as Lou said, 'pass through fire' and be a definitive interpreter of both his music andhis life." (Sting)

" Lou Reed is Lou Reed!" (Iggy Pop)

good primer on Lou Reed and his music

Never been a fan of Lou Reed (well before my time), but this book really made me explore his work.

Listen to the albums as you go!

Good book but the listening experience was even better listening to the albums as I made my way through the book!

Excellent Bio / Narrator Issues

Exactly the overview of Lou Reed I was hoping for. I love the deep descriptions of the albums and individual tracks. I listened along and discovered gems in Lou’s catalogue I never would have encountered otherwise.

The narrator should not attempt to use accents. He has a great natural voice and should use it unaffected. His attempt at John Cale’s Welsh accent was hilarious. It modulated from Cockney all the way to Russian and never sounds even faintly Welsh.

Really awesome Rock and Roll book

I never skimmed past a print story, review or interview having to do with Lou or the Velvets. I really thought I had heard or read all the stories, many I assumed we're fictional, or at least exaggerations.
This books hits on the obvious bullet points of Lou's career, but there are some tasty morsels slipped in there, each album anaylized (almost track by track) and the "logic" of Lou's musical direction.

Great review of a great artist

I truly enjoyed learning about the exciting life of Lou Reed. The production is well executed.

Everything I hoped it would be.

I especially appreciated Mr. DeCurtis' attention to Lou's albums, which has opened up his discography to me in new and exciting ways. Great reading by Peter Coleman too.

VU & Lou Record Reviews. Waste of Time

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

Someone who isn't familiar with Lou Reed or VU

Has Lou Reed turned you off from other books in this genre?

Not at all. Just the author.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Lou Reed?

I would have given it a different title: Lou Reed and VU album reviews song by song.
Other than the DeCurtis record reviews everything else about Lou has been covered elsewhere. No new news anywhere.

Any additional comments?

Read Dirty Blvd. The Life and Music of Lou Reed, By Aidan Levy instead.

I wish...

I wish the narrator didn't read this book like it was a 1967 instructional film strip. Another listen ruined by a voice that's about as dynamic as a social studies text book.

eh...

The author is a music critic and writing gets off the narrative of Reed's life and gets mired in long, track-by-track descriptions of nearly every recording the prolific artist made. If you're a die-hard fan, maybe that's a plus. But if you're interested in the story of the artist's life those passages drag.

The reader has a strange, flat radio announcer voice and comes off sounding a little like Howard Cosell. He affects an awkward Brooklyn accent when quoting Reed, but I warmed to it a little. His voicing of women was embarrassing, though, especially making Laurie Anderson sound fey and flighty.

Solid but we are still waiting on the definitive Lou Reed bio

DeCurtis is a good writer and this is a good book but it's not the definitive biography Lou has been deserving. We are given some good insights into Lou's early and later years especially but the majority of the book is bogged down by a more basic album by album review approach. Bottom line it is one of the best books on Lou out there but it will still be disappointing to devotees.