Lou Reed: The RCA & Arista Album Collection (Sony Legacy)
In a nutshell: If you are a Lou Reed fan, you should get this seventeen-cd box set regardless of how much of its contents you already own. Everything has been remastered; I compared the sound on six albums I have earlier CDs of (I did not compare the new CDs to my old vinyl, as that's apples and oranges), and on five the sound is greatly improved, more focused and with greater clarity; The Bells in particular has its murky sound fixed but retains its darkness. The exception is Take No Prisoners; it may be, given the circumstances under which this concert was recorded, that there wasn't much to work with there, but the sound is just as good as before. Throw in a very nice book -- not booklet; this thing's hardbound and roughly 11"x12" -- with co-producer Hal Willner's reminiscences,...
In a nutshell: If you are a Lou Reed fan, you should get this seventeen-cd box set regardless of how much of its contents you already own. Everything has been remastered; I compared the sound on six albums I have earlier CDs of (I did not compare the new CDs to my old vinyl, as that's apples and oranges), and on five the sound is greatly improved, more focused and with greater clarity; The Bells in particular has its murky sound fixed but retains its darkness. The exception is Take No Prisoners; it may be, given the circumstances under which this concert was recorded, that there wasn't much to work with there, but the sound is just as good as before. Throw in a very nice book -- not booklet; this thing's hardbound and roughly 11"x12" -- with co-producer Hal Willner's reminiscences,...
- 10/26/2016
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Not that Lou Reed would have recognized me (though I was introduced to him once, which I'll get to), but he and his body of work intersected my life in more personal ways than that of any other major rock star. So this isn't an obituary so much as a series of memories. For obituaries, check out Gary Graff in Billboard and Jon Dolan in Rolling Stone.
Lou was from Long Island and I was from Long Island. At the most basic level, this meant that, growing up listening to Long Island radio stations, I heard lots of Lou even when he was no longer especially fashionable (between about 1976 and 1981). Thus, while most of the world ignored his 1978 album Street Hassle, I heard much of it on Wlir and Wbab, and bought it – my first Lou album. He had started out underground in the Velvet Underground, had managed to claw...
Lou was from Long Island and I was from Long Island. At the most basic level, this meant that, growing up listening to Long Island radio stations, I heard lots of Lou even when he was no longer especially fashionable (between about 1976 and 1981). Thus, while most of the world ignored his 1978 album Street Hassle, I heard much of it on Wlir and Wbab, and bought it – my first Lou album. He had started out underground in the Velvet Underground, had managed to claw...
- 10/28/2013
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
On this week's episode of "American Idol," the remaining seven finalists will take on the Lennon/McCartney song book. It's not the first time they have tapped into the Beatles catalog — they made a big deal about clearing those songs back in the seventh season (featuring Brooke White singing "Let It Be" and David Cook's run through "Elanor Rigby") and a number of songs have cropped up since then.
It's a fitting tribute, as the two primary Beatles have contributed some of the most wonderful melodies in the history of popular music and both Lennon and McCartney had versatile voices (something that every "American Idol" contestant aspires to). But there are plenty of other legendary songwriting pairs who deserve a tip of the hat. Here are five tag teams who deserve the "American Idol" tribute treatment.
Burt Bacharach and Hal David
A quintessential songwriting pair, Bacharach and David are...
It's a fitting tribute, as the two primary Beatles have contributed some of the most wonderful melodies in the history of popular music and both Lennon and McCartney had versatile voices (something that every "American Idol" contestant aspires to). But there are plenty of other legendary songwriting pairs who deserve a tip of the hat. Here are five tag teams who deserve the "American Idol" tribute treatment.
Burt Bacharach and Hal David
A quintessential songwriting pair, Bacharach and David are...
- 4/6/2010
- by Kyle Anderson
- MTV Newsroom
There's no question that the music industry is in trouble, and record labels are doing everything they can to try to stay afloat and figure out how to do business in the new media world. Despite the financial troubles of some of those institutions, you would think that certain places would be protected by history. But there was a scare last week when a rumor floated around that Emi was thinking about selling Abbey Road Studios, made legendary by the Beatles for their 1969 album Abbey Road and the site of the recording of legendary albums like Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon and Radiohead's The Bends.
But though composer Andrew Lloyd Webber was floated as a potential buyer, Emi announced that they were not planning on selling the place. "We believe that Abbey Road should remain in Emi's ownership," the company said in a statement.
That's good...
But though composer Andrew Lloyd Webber was floated as a potential buyer, Emi announced that they were not planning on selling the place. "We believe that Abbey Road should remain in Emi's ownership," the company said in a statement.
That's good...
- 2/22/2010
- by Kyle Anderson
- MTV Newsroom
It's been a long time since Mickey Avalon was passing out demos at Hollywood nightclubs and scrambling to secure a deal with MySpace Records. If you slept on his self-titled 2006 debut — an insanely profane, gutter-hugging punk rap manifesto featuring the classics "Jane Fonda" and "So Rich, So Pretty" — might I suggest you boost a copy from the cut-out bin of your local used record store? (It's what the old Mickey might have done.)
A few years removed from his more sordid days of street chaos, Avalon has been grinding away on his second album for the past few years, recording more than 70 tracks with a bevy of bold-faced names and a couple of unlikely hotshot producers. Calling in from Los Angeles on Thursday (don't worry, Governator — Mickey's mom was driving the car), Avalon gave a preview of what fans can expect from the tentatively titled Electric Gigolo, which is penciled...
A few years removed from his more sordid days of street chaos, Avalon has been grinding away on his second album for the past few years, recording more than 70 tracks with a bevy of bold-faced names and a couple of unlikely hotshot producers. Calling in from Los Angeles on Thursday (don't worry, Governator — Mickey's mom was driving the car), Avalon gave a preview of what fans can expect from the tentatively titled Electric Gigolo, which is penciled...
- 10/29/2009
- by Gil Kaufman
- MTV Newsroom
Composer Ryan Shore is one of the rising stars of the film music world. Thanks to his collaborations with MovieScoreMedia, more and more of his scores are now available to the public. Headspace, Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer and the Macedonian movie Senki (Shadows) are just a number of titles available from their catalogue. In the summer, Msm released a three-way collection of jazzy scores from Ryan's career: Numb, Kettle of Fish and Coney Island Baby are just pure fun to listen to. Now a new collection is available, collecting together a wide range of short film scores from Ryan's earlier days. The award winning animated shorts include the much-requested Rex Steele: Nazi Smasher, the Claymation short Shadowplay and the dark comedy Cadaverous. What connects together these scores apart from being written by the same composer is that you'd never think they were written for short films - they could underscore...
- 10/3/2009
- Daily Film Music Blog
Lou Reed's solo albums each have their proponents and opponents, with fans standing up for everything from the avant-noise experiment Metal Machine Music to the post-Springsteen mainstream-rock push Coney Island Baby. Reed's 1973 concept album Berlin is especially controversial among Reed-ophiles, both for its prog-rock pretensions—it's a song cycle about a drug-addicted German prostitute and her children, with contributing performances by the likes of Steve Winwood and Jack Bruce—and for its fashionable nihilism. Lester Bangs dubbed it "a gargantuan slab of maggoty rancor," and those who enjoyed the more pop-minded Transformer by and large failed to follow Reed on his journey into the colossally morose. Even Berlin's devotees have complained over the years about the record's relatively punchless sound. If nothing else, Julian Schnabel's concert film Lou Reed's Berlin presents the album's 10 songs with a force they've rarely shown before. Filmed over five nights in New York,...
- 7/17/2008
- by Noel Murray
- avclub.com
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