{"id":2236114,"date":"2024-05-03T00:00:02","date_gmt":"2024-05-03T04:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-tributaries-of-lou-reed\/"},"modified":"2024-05-03T00:07:06","modified_gmt":"2024-05-03T04:07:06","slug":"the-tributaries-of-lou-reed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-tributaries-of-lou-reed\/","title":{"rendered":"Lou Reed&#8217;s Rivers&#8217; Contributions"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">8<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthe-tributaries-of-lou-reed%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2236114&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The text discusses the transition in the \u2062music industry from cover albums to\u2062 original compositions, highlighting the impact of iconic artists like The Beatles and the changing expectations for performers. \u200bIt also delves\u200c into tribute albums, the evolution \u200bfrom cover albums, \u200cand the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wynonna-judd-speaks-out-after-her-seriously-bizarre-cma-awards-performance-worries-fans\/\" title=\"Wynonna Judd Speaks Out After Her 'Seriously Bizarre' CMA Awards Performance Worries Fans\">challenges artists face<\/a> in honoring the originals while adding their \u2064own touch. The text\u200d explores the shift\u200c in the music industry\u2063 from cover albums to original compositions, influenced by legendary \u200dartists such \u200das The Beatles. It addresses the evolution towards\u200b tribute albums, the departure \u200cfrom cover albums, and the\u2062 artist&#8217;s dilemma of paying \u200dhomage to\u2062 originals while infusing their\u2062 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/4-intellectuals-who-started-out-liberal-but-ended-up-conservative\/\" title=\"4 Intellectuals Who Started Out Liberal But Ended Up Conservative\">unique style<\/a>.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Once, all albums were collections of covers. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/magazine-life-arts\/1479087\/sinatras-way\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Frank Sinatra<\/a> and Elvis Presley didn\u2019t just record songs written by other people. They had hits with songs that other acts had already recorded. Then came <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/beatles\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>the Beatles<\/a>. Performers were now expected to write their own songs, and songs were meant to be authentic reflections of the performers, especially in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/magazine-life-arts\/173221\/americas-greatest-rock-band\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title><a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-15-most-anticipated-albums-of-2021\/\" title=\"The 15 Most Anticipated Albums of 2021\u00a0\">rock music<\/a><\/a>, where passion trumped technical competence. The cover song declined in value \u2014 not least to the performers, who could now earn some of the real money from composers\u2019 royalties. Yet the all-cover album did not disappear.<\/p>\n<p>In 1970, Booker T. &#038; the MGs released <em>McLemore Avenue<\/em>, an all-instrumental redo of the entire <em>Abbey Road<\/em> album, and George Benson released <em>The Other Side of Abbey Road<\/em>, with orchestra and vocals. In the summer of 1973, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/david-bowie\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>David Bowie<\/a>, unable to write the new songs that his record company demanded, recorded <em>Pinups<\/em>, a collection of 1960s British rock tunes that he had enjoyed as a teenager. Two years later, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/898278\/let-it-be-paul-mccartney-insists-john-lennon-was-the-one-who-broke-up-the-beatles\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>John Lennon<\/a>, busted for lifting \u201cCome Together\u201d from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/chuck-berry\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Chuck Berry<\/a>\u2019s \u201cYou Can\u2019t Catch Me,\u201d made penance by recording a similar exercise in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/1359978\/musician-chuck-berry-dies-at-90\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>nostalgia<\/a>, <em>Rock \u2019n\u2019 Roll<\/em>.<\/p>\n<figure><figcaption>\u201c<em>The Power of the Heart<\/em>\u201c<em> <\/em>is a classic tribute album. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/if-the-post-covid-recovery-was-so-great-why-cant-i-get-better-than-two-star-service\/\" title=\"Why am I still getting two-star service despite the post-Covid 'recovery'?\">record business<\/a> or the record buyers demanded new product, and the artists supplied the next best thing. The Bowie album is great: he finds something new, usually himself, in every track. The Lennon album is boring, a tribute act. The same goes for Siouxsie and the Banshees\u2019 <em>Through the Looking Glass <\/em>(1987). Booker T. and George Benson gave the Beatles a musical upgrade. The Banshees dragged the Doors and Iggy Pop down to their inept level. Guns N\u2019 Roses did the same in their cack-handed collection of punk covers, <em>The Spaghetti Incident? <\/em>(1993), recorded during their three-year struggle to compile the <em>Use Your Illusion <\/em>album.<\/p>\n<p>By the 1990s, rock music was explicitly nostalgic, and the stars were beginning to die out. The cover album became the \u201ctribute album,\u201d in which a selection of well-known artists paid homage to another well-known artist by covering a track. Tribute albums have become a genre to themselves. Occasionally, they outdo the original, as Deana Carter\u2019s \u201cState Trooper\u201d and The Band\u2019s \u201cAtlantic City\u201d did on <em>Badlands: A Tribute to Bruce Springsteen\u2019s Nebraska <\/em>(2000). Sometimes, they refresh old chestnuts, as Johnny Cash did with \u201cIn My Life\u201d on 2002\u2019s <em>American IV<\/em>, or find hidden virtues in new tunes, as Cash did with Nine Inch Nails\u2019s \u201cHurt\u201d and Ryan Adams did when he rerecorded Taylor Swift\u2019s entire <em>1989<\/em> album in 2015. But usually, they struggle to escape the shadow of the giant they are trying to evoke.<\/p>\n<p>Most rock songs depend on charisma: the presence of the performer, the feel of the original recording. This is especially true with artists who have a strong sonic signature. That didn\u2019t stop Selfless Records (later Clearview Records) of Texas from commissioning various punk bands to rerecord the entire Ramones\u2019 back catalog between 1993 and 2000. Compared to that exercise in futile fandom, <em>Is It Rolling Bob?: A Reggae Tribute to Bob Marley <\/em>(2004) is<em> <\/em>positively ingenious. According to the Wikipedia page for \u201cTribute Albums,\u201d the all-time winner of the homage stakes is, appropriately enough, David Bowie (24 albums). The Eagles have only one album. Fleetwood Mac have two. Supply and demand.<\/p>\n<p>Lou Reed now has two, too, following the release in April of <em>The Power of the Heart<\/em>. This is a classic tribute album. The object of veneration is dead. Many of the songs are obscure selections (many of the catchier ones appear on the 2021 collection <em>What Goes On<\/em>, which scraped together historic Reed covers by artists including Bryan Ferry and the Cowboy Junkies). And all of the artists must choose between faithfully impersonating the songwriter\u2019s canonical recording, exploring the latent possibilities of the song, or imposing their own style upon it.<\/p>\n<p>The imposers sound like impostors. Rufus Wainwright ruins \u201cPerfect Day.\u201d Going to the opposite extremes from Reed\u2019s flat tenor effect, Wainwright mumbles the opening of each line as if he\u2019s chewing a sandwich, then warbles the end of the line in a thin tremolo. Worse still, he rewrites the melody of the payoff line, \u201cYou\u2019re going to reap just what you sow\u201d \u2014 and not for the better. This is almost as atrocious as Rickie Lee Jones\u2019s assault on \u201cWalk On The Wild Side.\u201d She replaces Reed\u2019s signature string bass line with a drunken piano, and her vocal croaks like one of the witches from <em>Macbeth<\/em>. She even denies us the pleasure of the \u201cDo, do, do, do-do\u201d line. People have been jailed for less.<\/p>\n<p>The Afghan Whigs start the MTV bopper \u201cI Love You, Suzanne\u201d in the style of Bruce Hornsby and the Range, and finish it, if anyone is still listening, with a guitar overload that the song is too frail to carry. The title track, which Reed wrote as a wedding gift to Laurie Anderson in 2008, is bungled by Brogan Bentley, who adds a half-beat hiccup at the start of each verse. Where Reed sounded passionately wizened, Bentley sounds merely self-absorbed. <\/p>\n<p>The faithful impersonators are, as usual, hard to fault, but often hard to care about. Maxim Ludwig and Angel Olsen\u2019s \u201cI Can\u2019t Stand It\u201d confirms Reed\u2019s influence on indie rock, not that confirmation is needed. Adding a footnote to a filler, Joan Jett does her glam-rock routine on Reed\u2019s glam rocker \u201cI\u2019m So Free.\u201d More interesting is Bobby Rush\u2019s \u201cSally Can\u2019t Dance,\u201d which fulfills the funk potential of the original. The New Orleans singer Mary Gauthier does a beautiful job on \u201cConey Island Baby,\u201d complete with replica guitar solo.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>And now for the explorers. Rosanne Cash (\u201cMagician\u201d) and Lucinda Williams (\u201cLegendary Hearts\u201d) effortlessly steer Reed tunes from garage rock to gritty Americana. Both Cash and Williams are careful in handling Reed\u2019s rhythmic, half-spoken vocal style. Keith Richards, who also has a half-spoken vocal style, struggles a bit with \u201cI\u2019m Waiting For The Man,\u201d though the band, who sound not unlike Reed\u2019s mid-1980s groups, cruise amiably.<\/p>\n<p>The winner? Automatic\u2019s guitar-less \u201cNew Sensations\u201d is an all-electro glide. It\u2019s far from Reed\u2019s sound, but the distance throws him into relief: the smooth female vocal brings out the darkness of Reed\u2019s underplayed original. It\u2019s faithful without falling into impersonation, and explorative without trashing the material. It reminds me of the Fleetwood Mac cover album <em>Just Tell Me That You Want Me <\/em>(2012), where young bands like Best Coast and Tame Impala had fun with their parents\u2019 record collection. And I don\u2019t even like Fleetwood Mac.<\/p>\n<p><em>Dominic Green is a <\/em>Washington Examiner <em>columnist and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Find him on Twitter @drdominicgreen. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the past, albums featured covers. Sinatra, Elvis sang others&#8217; tunes to success. The Beatles changed the game, urging artists to compose their own, reflecting true selves in songs<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":947,"featured_media":2236115,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/wex-s3.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/LA.Culture-1024x591.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[538],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2236114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-washington-examiner"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/wex-s3.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/LA.Culture-1024x591.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2236114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/947"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2236114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2236114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2236115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2236114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2236114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2236114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}