Lou Reed/Velvet Underground Book Out Now Via Trouser Press
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Lou Reed remains one of rock music’s most poetic and transgressive figures. Between his time fronting the iconic and influential band The Velvet Underground and his groundbreaking solo material, Reed released 50 original albums. Noted critic and writer Jim Higgins listened to every album Lou Reed has recorded and has put down his observations, analyses, and appraisals in his latest book, Sweet, Wild and Vicious: Listening to Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground, out now via Trouser Press Books.
Trouser Press Books publisher Ira Robbins said, “Jim Higgins takes the reader on a long walk through one of the most complicated, controversial, and influential of rock oeuvres in terms that are, in turn, scholarly, hip, informative, and personal. The unstated goal of books like this is to make you go back and listen anew to records you thought you knew front to back; Sweet, Wild and Vicious achieves that and more.”
There is no finer independent publishing house that can do justice to Lou Reed’s career than Trouser Press Books. The company has continually been publishing literary fiction and music journalism since 1974. A true genius, Lou Reed was both a musical and literary talent whose lyrics helped define a community of misfits that was formed in the underground art world of New York City.
Jim Higgins is an award-winning journalist who throughout his varied career has done everything from pop music and jazz criticism to humor writing. He is the book editor for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Higgins grew up in Pittsburgh, PA which gives him a connection to Lou Reed by way of fellow Pittsburgher pop artist Andy Warhol who was a producer, mentor, and friend to the performer.
Each entry in Sweet, Wild and Vicious: Listening to Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground, is highly detailed by Higgins who includes background information about the songwriting and recording process of the albums. Higgins heaps praise where it is justified but does not hold back when criticizing certain elements of Reed’s oeuvre. Outside the classic records Reed put out with The Velvet Underground in the sixties and his critically acclaimed solo work in the seventies, Higgins also analyzes Reed’s later solo work, his live albums, and the collaboration with Metallica. This is the most comprehensive exploration of Lou Reed’s enduring legacy.
The Five Best Lou Reed Albums According to Jim Higgins
(Limited to Lou Reed’s solo records)
1. New York (1989). His most passionately engaged album on all fronts – voice, lyrics and guitar, enhanced by sympathetic recording.
2. Songs for Drella (1990). A truly successful concept album that comes closest to fulfilling Reed’s vision of rock music as literature.
3. Coney Island Baby (1975). Blends the warmth of doo-wop and soul with provocative subjects.
4. Street Hassle (1978). Dark, turbulent and messy, in a good way.
5. Ecstasy (2000). The album that’s risen most in my esteem in the years since Reed’s death, because I’ve listened to it enough now to get what he’s doing – raging against the dying of the light.
Sweet, Wild and Vicious: Listening to Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground is available at bookstores everywhere and can be ordered directly from the Trouser Press Books website. Both the physical book and eBook are available via Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Apple.
