Lou Reed’s Transformer

✍ Scribed by Ezra Furman

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2018
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 185
• Series: 33 1/3
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Transformer, Lou Reed’s most enduringly popular album, is described with varying labels: it’s often called a glam rock album, a proto-punk album, a commercial breakthrough for Lou Reed, and an album about being gay. And yet, it doesn’t neatly fit into any of these descriptors. Buried underneath the radio-friendly exterior lie coded confessions of the subversive, wounded intelligence that gives this album its staying power as a work of art. Here Lou Reed managed to make a fun, accessible rock‘n’roll record that is also a troubled meditation on the ambiguities—sexual, musical and otherwise—that defined his public persona and helped make him one of the most fascinating and influential figures in rock history. Through close listening and personal reflections, songwriter Ezra Furman explores Reed’s and Transformer’s unstable identities, and the secrets the songs challenge us to uncover.

✦ Table of Contents

Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Fuck You Leave Me Alone Don’t Read My Book
Lou the Queer
Lou the Failure
Lou and Bowie
Side One
“Vicious”: Lou and Hate
“Andy’s Chest”: Lou and Warhol
“Perfect Day”: Lou and Bettye
“Hangin’ ’Round”: Lou and Coolness
“Walk on the Wild Side”: Lou and the Underworld
Side Break: Lou in the Closet/Transformer in Code
Side Two
“Make Up”: Lou and Gender
“Satellite of Love”: Lou and Pop
“Wagon Wheel”: Lou and Laziness
“New York Telephone Conversation”: Lou and New York
“I’m So Free”: Lou and Freedom
“Goodnight Ladies”: Lou and Loneliness
The Man Himself
Enormous Thanks
Also available in the series