Lou Reed

Ex-Velvet Underground front man Lou Reed has, over the course of a 35-plus-year career, never failed to challenge his audience just as much as he challenges himself. Ranked #55 on New Musical Express's best albums of all time, Reed's 1972 breakthrough, Transformer, featured the slinky, seductive and scandalous "Walk on the Wild Side." "What's Good" is a deceptively tuneful song from an ultimately harrowing album about Reed's relationship with the legendary (and then dying) songwriter Doc Pomus. And the title track from Coney Island Baby, a trip through Reed's back pages, finds him surprisingly vulnerable behind the tough-guy pose.

In Next Steps, we see Reed reunited with fellow V.U. alum John Cale and his music running a gamut of emotions, from reflective to chilling.

On the GRAMMY®-winning Songs for Drella, Reed and Velvet Underground partner John Cale perform a song cycle dedicated to their late mentor and friend, Andy Warhol. "Smalltown" sketches out in vibrant colors Warhol's rather unpleasant fish-out-of-water childhood in Pittsburgh. Reed conveys an eerie sense of foreboding in his spare, jagged-edged "Lady Day" from the 1973 concept album Berlin. And on "Think It Over," he shows just how shadowy a Polaroid moment can be as two too-hip-for-the-room lovers consider committing matrimony.

In Deep Cuts we go a little farther off the beaten path, including a stop in the 19th century, as Reed pays tribute to one of America's greatest writers.

New York City runs through Lou Reed's veins the way New Orleans flowed in Lou(is) Armstrong's, so it's little wonder that Reed dedicated an album's worth of material to his hometown, noting "There's a rampaging rage rising up like a plague," but offering no suggestions for dealing with it. On the live "Why Do You Talk," Reed proves that even in concert, he can deliver a tune with the intimacy of a lover's touch. And Edgar Allan Poe's writings provided inspiration for the somewhat autobiographical "Who Am I? (Tripitena's Song)" from The Raven, a 2003 release featuring an all-star cast, including Laurie Anderson, David Bowie, and Ornette Coleman. And that just scratches the surface of a complex and demanding performer . . .

You can't really speak of Lou Reed without mentioning the Velvet Underground any more than you can talk of Paul Simon without mentioning Art Garfunkel, though Reed's solo career now stretches to over 35 years, a pretty impressive number by any measure. His voice drips hip, not surprisingly, given that Reed has been on New York City's creative A-list since before Warhol learned that Campbell's soup wasn't just for eating. And he has continually challenged himself — not to mention his audiences — with a kaleidoscope of projects, from a double-CD set based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe to a contract-busting album of industrial noise ideal as background music for flensing whales. One constant in Reed's storied career is that you simply can't predict with any accuracy where he's going next, which keeps him not only interesting, but vital.