Lou Reed Sings The Beach Boys

[Teasing the Korean]

File under:  Things you never expected to hear.

Edited September 5, 2022 by Teasing the Korean

[Milestones]

Lou Reed is really in there?  About all I can say is that this is a bunch of guys who can't sing.

[Teasing the Korean]

11 minutes ago, Milestones said:

Lou Reed is really in there?  About all I can say is that this is a bunch of guys who can't sing.

He is the lead vocalist.  Pre-Velvets, he had a salaried gig at Pickwick.  This probably fell under "assumes other duties as assigned."  He does not sing lead on any of the other tracks from the album.

Edited September 5, 2022 by Teasing the Korean

[Milestones]

More evidence for those who say Reed couldn't sing.  I would probably agree, but in rock (and punk and rap) music you don't necessarily need even modest singing ability.  You do need a distinctive style, and Lou certainly had that in his best work.

His voice, for being the lead, is unusually low in the mix. 

 

Edited September 5, 2022 by Milestones

[Teasing the Korean]

6 minutes ago, Milestones said:

More evidence for those who say Reed couldn't sing.  I would probably agree, but in rock (and punk and rap) music you don't necessarily need even modest singing ability.  You do need a distinctive style, and Lou certainly had that in his best work.

Yeah, what constitutes "good singing" is based at least as much on what is communicated than it is on technical ability.  Bob Dylan once said he was a greater singer than Caruso, and he had a point. 

6 minutes ago, Milestones said:

His voice, for being the lead, is unusually low in the mix. 

It sounds like he may have been on the same track as the backing vocals, and the engineer was a asleep at the wheel.

[Milestones]

Dylan is almost always interesting to listen to, and often he is quite moving as a vocalist. 

And since I don't care for opera, I'll always take Dylan over Caruso.

 

 

Edited September 5, 2022 by Milestones

[Teasing the Korean]

Just now, Milestones said:

Dylan is almost always interesting to listen to, and often he is quite moving as a vocalist. 

Agreed, especially in the 1960s and 70s.  He started to lose it by the late-1970s IMO.

[jazzbo]

For me he started getting really interesting in the 'nineties on.

[Milestones]

Bob is so expressive on "Once Upon a Time" from just a few years ago.  I never thought he could do a vocal like that, especially so late in his life.

 

[Teasing the Korean]

5 minutes ago, jazzbo said:

For me he started getting really interesting in the 'nineties on.

Don't think I heard any of that.  I have the Biography 5-LP set, which I think goes to the mid- or late-1980s.

1 minute ago, Milestones said:

Bob is so expressive on "Once Upon a Time" from just a few years ago.  I never thought he could do a vocal like that, especially so late in his life.

How are his standards albums?

[Jim Duckworth]

7 minutes ago, jazzbo said:

For me he started getting really interesting in the 'nineties on.

Couldn't agree more.  

[Milestones]

They are worth hearing, though they strike me as inconsistent.  Some of the performances just don't work very well, but there are some great ones: "Once Upon a Time," "I'm a Fool to Want You," "That Lucky Old Sun."

[Rooster_Ties]

The only Dylan album I have is Oh Mercy from 1989 (plus a promo-single of a song, “Series of Dreams” from the same sessions, that really ought to have been on the album too) — and it’s a lovely album I enjoy a lot.

But I never got bitten by the Dylan but. I did own a (free promo) copy of the very first Bootleg Series Vol 1 set — that I got back in college, but never kept. It gave me some insight as to why Bob is so important — but I still didn’t feel the urge to get lots more.

That said, I’ve toyed with getting a couple more of his from the 90’s.

[jazzbo]

I just put "Time Out of Mind" in the player. This one keeps growing on me. Some of the lyrics seem to be written just for me at a period in my life. The next volume of the Bootleg Series is rumored to cover this album period. Vol. 8 did perviously ("Tell Tale Signs") and if I had to I'd grab my 3 disc version of that set to take to a deserted isle.

[Matthew]

Continuing the tangent: Dylan's "Love and Theft" (famous also for being released on 9/11/2001) is one of his top five albums, a stone-cold classic.

[mjzee]

Here's Lou and "The Beachnuts" doing a cross between The Beach Boys and Dylan:

 

[Bluesnik]

When I listen to Dylan it's mostly Highway 61 or Blonde on Blonde. But I like Desire too. From when I was just 13 or 14. Or The Frewheelin.

[felser]

On 9/5/2022 at 11:00 AM, jazzbo said:

I just put "Time Out of Mind" in the player. This one keeps growing on me. 

My favorite album of his from the last 35+ years (since 'Infidels').  The other one that sticks with me is 2020's 'Rough and Rowdy Ways', which was SO timely.

[jazzbo]

I like them all to be honest. Each is it's own little planet or timescape. 

[felser]

On 9/5/2022 at 9:57 AM, Milestones said:

Lou Reed is really in there?  About all I can say is that this is a bunch of guys who can't sing.

Whole thing sounds like a bad joke.

[Teasing the Korean]

11 minutes ago, felser said:

Whole thing sounds like a bad joke.

Well, you never knew what you were getting with a budget label album.  They spanned from the sublime - Robert Drasnin's Voodoo - to the ridiculous, as is the case here.  

Still, it's pretty cool to hear Lou Reed sing "Little Deuce Coupe!"

[JSngry]

It was a gig. The business needed product so they paid people to provide product.

Simple as that, and although the need for THAT type of product might seem mysterious to us today, there were many isolated-y pockets of the country that did not have ready access to regular record stores. So this type of stuff showed up in dime stores, at affordable prices.

Plus, you know, not everybody was going to pay attention. Even worse, not everybody cared. Some people just wanted somebody/anybody singing the songs. and at the price points these things went for, they sold enough to keep going for a while.

Plus - tax write-offs. always.

16 minutes ago, Teasing the Korean said:

Still, it's pretty cool to hear Lou Reed sing "Little Deuce Coupe!"

Marginally cooler than I suspect it would be to hear Bob Dylan sing "I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times"...maybe more than marginally, actually.

[Teasing the Korean]

1 minute ago, JSngry said:

It was a gig. The business needed product so they paid people to provide product.

Simple as that, and although the need for THAT type of product might seem mysterious to us today, there were many isolated-y pockets of the country that did not have ready access to regular record stores. So this type of stuff showed up in dime stores, at affordable prices.

Plus, you know, not everybody was going to pay attention. Even worse, not everybody cared. Some people just wanted somebody/anybody singing the songs. and at the price points these things went for, they sold enough to keep going for a while.

Plus - tax write-offs. always.

Yup.  And you occasionally got budget-label albums that were better than much of what you could find on major labels, e.g., the aforementioned Robert Drasnin album. 

[felser]

I came across a few (Beatle-ish, Monkee-ish) as a kid that weren't bad.  I've also listened to enough garage-rock covers to recognize enthusiastic incompetent-bad.  This cut is subversive-bad, like they wanted it to be horrible.  Which, come to think of it, would be so Lou Reed.  Metal Surf-machine Music.

Edited September 12, 2022 by felser

[JSngry]

This is the one my folks brought home for me in the Spring of 1964: