Lou Reed
The Raven

THE REVIEW

There are many ways to be a musician.
Among these, some require adhering to the usual style, the usual script, and attitude throughout one's career. Other ways allow for transformation and evolution. Still others are a fusion of continuity and transformation.
Lou Reed has chosen this third path.

He wanted to merge rock transgressions with melodic maturity, cries of pain with reassuring words. He wanted to mix energy with class.
The result is “The Raven,” a work of long gestation, conceived to pay homage to one of the darkest and most impenetrable writers in literature, the still very relevant E.A. Poe, based on the theatrical representation “POEtry,” an exploration of the gothic poetics of Poe.

You will find this record in two versions: a “Limited” edition, consisting of two CDs and including the dialogues from the theatrical work, and another consisting of a single CD in which the dialogues are greatly reduced. I preferred the extended version, which I recommend, because the dialogues are narrated by guests such as Steve Buscemi (who also delights us with a beautiful song in an anthology piece, “Broadway Song,” old-time swing), Willem Dafoe, and Reed's “girl,” Laurie Anderson (foolish is he who does not know her!).

Is he known as a composer of lean and overwhelming songs? Well, then listen to how he develops the themes of the aggressive “Edgar Allan Poe” or the mystical “The Bed.”
Evolution. Probably the highest compositional peak he has reached.
Only to then contradict himself and return to his origins with the terrifying “A Thousand Departed Friends.”
Continuity.

When you listen to the initial pace of “Guilty,” with Ornette Coleman on alto sax, there will be tremors. When you taste “Hop Frog,” sung by David Bowie, there will be jolts. And if you pause for a moment to enjoy the version of “Perfect Day,” with a backdrop of keyboards and the voice of countertenor Anthony, there will be chills. Of joy but also of sadness.
Because unfortunately, there are almost no authors like this left.

Turn off the light, close the window, sit relaxed in an armchair, atomically isolate yourself from the rest of the world, and let the first notes of this record play. Let the journey begin. Returning to life after having been “so well as to feel dead” (Heroin) will be terribly depressing. I swear to you.