Lou Reed - Rock & Roll Animal - Music & Performance - CD

Recorded live in '73 at NY Academy of Music, is Lou's "live" masterpiece. The band produced fierce near heavy metal twin guitar apotheosis for over ninety minutes. Tracks include "Sweet Jane," "Heroin," "White Light/White Heat," "Rock 'n Roll," plus "Lady Day".

In 1974, after the commercial disaster of his album Berlin, Lou Reed needed a hit, and Rock N Roll Animal was a rare display of commercial acumen on his part, just the right album at just the right time. Recorded in concert with Reed's crack road band at the peak of their form, Rock N Roll Animal offered a set of his most anthemic songs (most dating from his days with the Velvet Underground) in arrangements that presented his lean, effective melodies and street-level lyrics in their most user-friendly form (or at least as user friendly as an album with a song called "Heroin" can get). Early-'70s arena rock bombast is often the order of the day, but guitarists Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter use their six-string muscle to lift these songs up, not weigh them down, and with Reed's passionate but controlled vocals riding over the top, "Sweet Jane," "White Light/White Heat," and "Rock 'n' Roll" finally sound like the radio hits they always should have been. Reed would rarely sound this commercial again, but Rock N Roll Animal proves he could please a crowd when he had to. [The revised CD reissue of Rock N Roll Animal released in 2000 offers markedly better sound than the album's initial release, along with two bonus cuts that give a better idea of how this band approached the material from Berlin on-stage, as well as an amusing moment of Reed verbally sparring with a heckler.] ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide

Performer	Lou Reed
Music genre	Rock
Music subgenre	Rock
Music release type	Album
Media format	CD
Original release date	2000
Language	English
Is collectible	Y
Has parental advisory label	N
Number of discs	1
Track listing	Intro/Sweet Jane, Heroin, How Do You Think It Feels - (Previously Unreleased), Caroline Says I - (Previously Unreleased), White Light/White Heat, Lady Day, Rock 'N' Roll
Record label	RCA
Songwriter	Lou Reed
Music producer	Lou Reed
Track name	Sweet Jane
Duration	47 min
Music media format	CD
Is edited	N
Is enhanced	N