Lou Reed's Transformer

Description

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.

Ezra Furman is a singer, songwriter and recording artist. She has released seven albums to critical acclaim. She lives in Berkeley, CA.

What Furman has written serves as more than a mere essay on Lou Reed; it's also a consideration of how the notion of queerness has evolved over time and what Reed meant both to queer culture and to Furman as a person. In its exploration of the nature of art and the artist in its portrayal of marginalized communities, Transformer is a welcome addition to the ever-growing 33 1/3 library. * Spectrum Culture * Rarely does longform music criticism get this personal, but Furman's willingness to be vulnerable as he excavates Transformer makes his debut book an incisive and necessary read. * Pitchfork * ...an intimate analysis... Arriving as it did, around the time of Grant Hart's death only serves to give the book deeper impact. * Palette *