Tag: Velvet Underground
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Lou Reed and John Cale work through their complex feelings for Andy Warhol in Songs for Drella
Rather than set aside their differences, Reed and Cale meld them together in a theatrical song cycle dedicated to their early patron.
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Songs That Broke My Heart: Hallelujah by John Cale
Conventional wisdom will tell you nobody did Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” better than Jeff Buckley. The few who disagree are likely of the opinion that nothing beats the original. Here’s a third opinion: the person who transformed Cohen’s song into the modern standard it is today was John Cale. As I started to compile songs for […]
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Lou Reed, Antony, and Julian Schnabel Dance the Rock Minuet in the Concert Film Berlin
Lou Reed‘s 1973 album Berlin is a concept album relating the tale of a doomed woman named Caroline living in the eponymous city. The term “concept album,” then and now, invokes immediate condescension from fans and critics alike, calling to mind the progressive rock excesses of 1970s megabands The Who (Tommy and Quadrophenia), Genesis (The […]
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Things We Lost in the Fire is kind of a drag
Susanne Bier’s Things We Lost in the Fire is a melodrama in the vein of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s 21 Grams in almost every way: the story of a nuclear family shattered by a random death, told as a nonlinear narrative, with conspicuously arty cinematography, and costarring Benicio Del Toro. Even a single-sentence description of the […]