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Rating: Hold on a minute.
Don't rush to attack me.
I'm not here to criticize the 'luciferian myth' of the Great Lou Reed, his importance with the Velvet Underground first and then as a solo artist (how can we not praise the masterpieces created in his over 20-year career, from 'Berlin' to 'Magic and Loss' passing through 'New York New York'?!). So for once, no invectives or accusatory arrows?
Relax.
I just want to emphasize again that an Artist, a Great Artist like Lou, when reaching a certain point and realizing that 'certain things cannot be surpassed', should have the critical, ethical, and moral strength to STOP and not repeat himself with weak copy-paste works already faded before being published.
In these 14 tracks (we are nearing the maximum tolerable dose with his 78 verbose minutes!!) of this "Ecstasy" from 2000, nothing more is said than what has been known for a while.
Lou Reed quotes himself and does so in a boring and repetitive manner while maintaining the minimum of interpretive dignity that a character of his caliber SHOULD absolutely guarantee (in one word: PROFESSIONALISM, right mister Stipe?), offering a healthy yet useless vintage rock'n'roll that has rare peaks here and there (see the opening 'Paranoia Key of E' or the sophisticated 'Tatters' or the energetic 'but too often heard' 'Future Farmers of America' which recalls flavors and moods of the early '70s).
Is it a bad work? Certainly not, there are other atrocities in this Great Circus called ROCK'N'ROLL, but it certainly cannot be called a 'completed' work or bursting with new energy. It's the same damn 'and trite' rock'n'roll heard for over 30 years in a thousand different sauces. Certainly the voice is always a panacea, deep, sensual like a wounded animal that communicates only with its timbre veiled by hoarseness, beyond the lyrics, which are always blunt and sincere like swords stuck in the side.
Just read the lyrics of the verbose track (over 18 minutes!!) 'Like a Possum' ("In my heart there's a hole as big as a truck"), restless, dark, electric and with a very high degree of despair. To have pieces so intense produced by people of this caliber (yes, I'm also talking to you, mister Vedder, don’t pretend you don’t hear).
We said honest rock'n'roll, sure, but, I repeat, nothing 'memorable' or to make us shout 'masterpiece' even though the album also contains country diversions like 'Turning Time Around' or the neurotic 'Big Sky' made of relentless usual rock'n'roll with heavy and sharp verses like rusty blades of a Gillette on bare skin, possibly without foam (Sooner or later, somewhere, a lot or a little, bleeding areas are surely there!)
Let's say, perhaps, that the LYRICS part certainly still has something to say (listen to the subsequent 'The Raven' taken from the work of Edgar Allan Poe) and that the music could easily take a back seat.
Let's say the future of this elderly gentleman of middle age I have already envisioned: the next step will be 'readings' of new 'songs' (?) made in theaters with simple background accompaniment, regardless of the quality of the musicians or the genre they will play.
But do we want to bet it will always be just damn rock'n'roll with three chords?! Would it make sense to do anything else anymore on the threshold of sixty, after spending so many of those years writing Rock History among mud, sweat, and filthy stubbornness!?
Let's just say: lurid yes, but not yet a total sellout servant to the System (right mister Bono?)?
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
04 Ecstasy (04:25)
They call you ecstasy
nothing ever sticks to you
Not velcro, not scotch tape
not my arms dipped in glue
Not if I wrap myself in nylon
a piece of duct tape down my back
Love pierced the arrow with the twelve
and I can't get you back
Ah, ecstasy
ecstasy
Ah, ecstasy
Across the streets an old Ford, they took off its wheels
the engine is gone
In its seat sits a box
with a note that says, Goodbye Charlie, thanks a lot
I see a child through a window with a bib
and I think of us and what we almost did
The Hudson rocketing with light
the ships pass the Statue of Liberty at night
They call it ecstasy, ah
ecstasy
Ecstasy, ah
ecstasy
Some men call me St. Ivory
some call me St. Maurice
I'm smooth as alabaster
with white veins runnin' through my cheeks
A big stud through my eyebrow
a scar on my arm that says, Domain
I put it over the tattoo
that contained your name
They called you ecstasy, ecstasy
ecstasy
They call you ecstasy, ecstasy
ecstasy
The moon passing through a cloud
a body facing up is floating towards a crowd
And I think of a time and what I couldn't do
I couldn't hold you close, I couldn't, I couldn't become you
They call you ecstasy, I can't hold you down
I can't hold you up
I feel like that car that I saw today, no radio
no engine, no hood
I'm going to the cafe, I hope they've got music
and I hope that they can play
But if we have to part
I'll have a new scar right over my heart
I'll call it ecstasy
Oh, ecstasy, ecstasy
ecstasy
Ecstasy, ecstasy
ecstasy
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Other reviews
By Night87
Ecstasy is extraordinary both musically and lyrically and capable of presenting to the public an artist increasingly mature and aware of his innate ability to transform poetry into music.
Rock Minuet is undoubtedly to be counted among the classics of the American artist as it decidedly represents metropolitan and more than just his poetry.
By Luca92mo
Lou Reed showed his audience what rock means to him, and I’m truly sorry for those who consider him a has-been.
Three different Lou Reeds this evening: the rocker, the experimentalist, and the poet.
