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Who's best: Lou Reed or John Cale?
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Popel Vooje
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Re: Who's best: Lou Reed or John Cale?
Apr 25, 2010, 16:05
Agreed about Reed's late 70s output - those albums on Arista were definitely his creative nadir (whatever he might think). I also take your point about Cale's early 80s stuff being recorded whilst he was in a genuinely fractured state of mind - but then that's why I like "Music for a New Society" (as well as "Kill City", "Loki", "Tonight's the Night" and all those other cathartic missives from rock-bottom-land. Sure, none of them are albums I'd listen to every day - they're too intense for that - but at the very least they demonstrate the willingness of their creators to go out on a limb and make records that reflect how they really felt rather than what their audiences expected of them.

I also think that what you said about Cale's early 80s output could also apply to Reed's late 70s stuff - whilst the latter may always have been a hard liver, in the VU/RCA days he sounded as though he still had enough control over his amphetamine habit not to let it interfere with his artistic decisions, whilst from "Rock'n'Roll Heart" onwards you can sense that his personal life was starting to have a detrimental effect on his muse (although I'll confess that "Take No Prisoners" does make me laugh like a drain).

Regardless of personal preferences though, I think we'd all agree that the Reed/Cale spat was one of the most productively symbiotic (albeit volatile) partnerships in rock's history. Even on their solo albums they both sometimes sound as though they're still unconsciously competing with each other's legacies despite them not working together anymore (hence "Metal Machine Music"'s resemblance to Cale's "Loop" flexi from 1966).
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