Lou Reed
Transformer

THE REVIEW

Reviewing "Transformer", is it possible that no one has done it yet? Okay, I'll take care of it.

I have the honor of presenting one of the albums that (really) left a mark in the history of rock, projected to our present day in a space/time capsule dated 1972, elusive like a meteor but consistent and constant like a satellite. A satellite of love.
It is no coincidence that this gem was the result of a mythical (and this is one of the rare cases where I use this overused adjective) artistic and, um?, sentimental partnership: David Bowie and Lou Reed meeting, arranging a session in London, and creating this psychedelic, bubblegum, metropolitan (therefore absolutely magnificent) hybrid born from British glam and the American underground.
At the time, Reed's career had reached a dead end: the warholian illusion of the Velvet Underground had disappeared forever, the perverse and shining image of that late '60s New York had faded, and our Sunday Morning singer immediately recognized in London the natural heir of that effervescent, creative and regenerative environment that had crashed against a barrier of notable deaths, drug addictions, ostracism from the mainstream audience (VU albums, as we know, sold nothing) and irreparable farewells. Bowie's role, launched toward the Ziggy Stardust epic, was fundamental in the resurrection of our beloved rebellious street crooner.
The result was this album, representing a miracle that has rarely repeated over the years: an album still "on the fringe", created by a "fringe" singer-songwriter that simultaneously achieves success and reaches the masses without betraying his (glorious) past. I am banal in saying that "the people" got to know Lou Reed starting from this work.

Here then is a Reed that recycles himself in the figure of a thug, seasoned by years and years impregnated with artistic dissolution and restlessness, opening up to boisterous rock and sweet-bitter ballads: in this perspective, the production of the White Duke (and the "historical" contribution of Mick Ronson on guitar) gives "substance" to this mask, making this travesty really realistic, in the same way he was able to make Ziggy's existential tale "earthly".
Under the festive and cheeky outfit of classics like "Vicious", "Hanging Around" (the glammest track on the album), and the famous "Walk On The Wild Side" (can anything be said about this piece that hasn't already been written?), there's a universe that, in that precise historical moment, lived in Reed's mind and memory: alienated and eccentric freak artists, prima donnas shamelessly flaunting their insecurity and fragility, prostitutes/exuberant as symbols of unrestrained yet lucid decay, drugs, madness, and despite everything, hope and utopia. This last aspect emerges almost caricature-like in one of the greatest songs ever, that "Perfect Day", modest and dramatic, representing a vignette of sudden (and unexpected) serenity. Similar atmospheres (but more alienated, playful, and ironic) pervade another great classic like "Satellite Of Love": these last two tracks will be, 30 plus years later, transformed into a song suitable for Vatican concerts (Lou Reed singing in front of the Pope...well, in a way it makes sense) and into a dance hit (as much as it's an amusing operation). Of that Lou Reed (much like that Bowie, dear me) today only a small trace remains. That's why I spoke of a "meteor".

But luckily the years pass, and the records remain (even if listening to "Transformer" on vinyl must be a different experience), and so I continue to enjoy the vaudeville jokes of "New York Telephone Conversation" and fall asleep to the jazzy "Goodnight Ladies". Awaiting a new transformation.