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Unsung Forum » Who's best: Lou Reed or John Cale? |
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Carlos 3884 posts |
Apr 23, 2010, 21:39
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I tend to go for JC ? Albums like Paris 1919, Vintage Violence, Music For a New Society, Fear and Helen Of Troy are great! Lou has also some nice records like Berlin and Transformer, but I go for JC. |
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vince 1628 posts |
Apr 23, 2010, 21:54
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Cale. No question. His contemporary efforts are way beyond Reed's in terms of quality. Velvets & Transformer aside, Reed's catalogue is very patchy. Cale's catalogue, although certainly not perfect, is far more consistent. Have seen them both live too, and both were quite excellent.
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Kilgore Trout 95 posts |
Apr 23, 2010, 21:54
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Completely agree with everything you said!!! 'Paris 1919' is an all-time fave of mine. I'd also suggest that the 'Songs For Drella' collaboration is under-rated and well worth reappraisal. Cale's overlooked 'Words For The Dying' is frequently wonderful too.
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Sin Agog 2253 posts |
Edited Apr 23, 2010, 22:59
Apr 23, 2010, 22:20
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Ooh, tasty question. I generally prefer Cale's solo work, and his attempt at punk/new wave with Sabotage/Live was arguably more convincing than Reed's Street Hassle (which I also love). There's also his uncanny knack for being at the right place at exactly the right time: producing Nico, The Stooges, Modern Lovers, Patti Smith etc. And the Dream Syndicate presaged a million '90s/'00s drone bands. But the V.U. were so bionically cool that even the bands they influenced took their cast-off cool and made a valuable contribution to rock music in their own right; a Lou-less V.U. just wouldn't work. It was his glissando guitar style, his perfect journalistic lyrics and his restless need to constantly explore new directions with each new song (bands would mine whole careers out of individual Velvet tracks) that really made the V.U. come alive. Cale helped bring Lou's early demos into the future, but he'd probably have carved a nice career as an A&R man or something if not for the Velvets. Whereas Lou Reed was born to make rock music. It's not really an either/or thing of course. Their Songs for Drella album shows they really mesh together when they can put their egos aside for a few minutes. I guess I haven't answered the question. I'll flip a coin: heads, Lou; tails, Cale. Tails it is. I'm happy with that decision. Here's what I think is one of his most beautiful cuts: Only Time Will Tell.
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singingringingtree 964 posts |
Apr 23, 2010, 23:01
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cale#s recs are generally "better", lou's a total dick, but cale never made anything as sea-changingly fabulous for me as "metal machine music" ... so .... who cares?
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Sin Agog 2253 posts |
Edited Apr 23, 2010, 23:17
Apr 23, 2010, 23:16
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singingringingtree wrote: cale#s recs are generally "better", lou's a total dick, but cale never made anything as sea-changingly fabulous for me as "metal machine music" ... so .... who cares? To be fair, they were both cantankerous sons of bitches. And you could make a pretty good case that MMM was an attempt to rip-off/expand upon Cale's Sun Blindness Music. I love them both, but I think Lou often gets credited with a lot of Cale's achievements. Even V.U.'s folkier direction wasn't entirely Cale-free, considering he was there for cuts like Stephanie Says.
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singingringingtree 964 posts |
Apr 23, 2010, 23:37
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[quote="Sin Agog And you could make a pretty good case that MMM was an attempt to rip-off/expand upon Cale's Sun Blindness Music.[/quote] for sure, completely .. but cale never had the balls to put this stuff out back then + reed did ... velvets post-cale is a bit of a sham for me, but props to lou for being crazy/driven enough to get MMM out there ... i was listening to 1st Nico LP earlier today - "it was a pleasure then" = jeez, in a way best velvets track (n)ever ... instrumentally, just lou + cale going at it ... v fine indeed
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Sin Agog 2253 posts |
Edited Apr 24, 2010, 01:38
Apr 24, 2010, 01:21
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Good points, dude. And I agree that It Was a Pleasure Then is a total classic- probably more influential on all of those Japanese noise-rock bands, especially Keiji Haino, than most of the Velvets' stuff. Here's a good article doing a side-by-side comparison of most of Cale and Reed's stuff: http://www.furious.com/perfect/calereed.html. Not sure I agree with all of it, though. He rips into MMM for one, which is a perfect LP for blasting out the cobwebs to or just zenning out. It's music that's gotten so dense that it almost goes full circle and becomes ambient.
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The Sea Cat 3608 posts |
Apr 24, 2010, 06:32
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John Cale, for all the reasons already mentioned.
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IanB 6761 posts |
Edited Apr 24, 2010, 08:39
Apr 24, 2010, 08:26
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Lou. I know the craft of songwriting is not a big priority for everyone (especially here) but how many classic songs has he written? At least a dozen instantly recognisable, straight-into-the-canon tunes. And how much of an influence has his writing style and guitar playing been on hundreds of artists, dozens of whom went on to shape the musical culture of the 70s, 80s and 90s? Admittedly he's not a great creative strike rate since Berlin but Rock n Roll Animal, Blue Mask, New York, Drella, CI Baby and Magic & Loss are all pretty great records. Most recording artists only have three to five really great years. The rest is the run up to greatness and then a long slow decline with the occasional spike of genuine interest. On his own John Cale is for me a Kevin Ayers level artist. Interesting, sometimes great but not totally essential for the more casual listener. Every home should have Transformer and Berlin. As a producer Cale has a bigger claim of course but without Lou I am not sure we would have ever heard of him outside of the minimalist, avant garde and IRCAM type scenes. Would he have even bothered with rock n roll? Lou has that Bowie thing of being able absorb stuff in the culture and churn it back out as pop music in his own image. In the end it is a bit like the Lennon / Macca thing. Macca gets all the brickbats for being soft whereas it was Lennon who was the real musical conservative in the Beatles pre Yoko. They needed each other to make the best of that they had.
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