Animal Serenade [LIVE]

Lou Reed

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 23, 2004)
• Original Release Date: March 23, 2004
• Number of Discs: 2
• Format: Live
• Label: Reprise / Wea
• Copy Protected
• ASIN: B0001IU934
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #14,885 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Lou Reed may have been a reluctant icon for the smart, art-fueled post-classic rock upheavals his efforts with the Velvet Underground and early solo albums inspired, but he's gratifyingly become one of the genre's wisest and most beloved godfathers. This two-plus hour live double-disc collection captures the 62-year-old Reed onstage in Los Angeles in 2003 on the heels of his ambitious, if commercially disappointing tribute to Poe, The Raven. Yet despite that unpromising context, the performances captured here nonetheless represent another unlikely career high-water mark. Wending his way through a body of work that seems ever more resilient and uncompromising in an increasingly disposable, marketing-mad pop landscape, Reed manages to evoke both big-rock grandeur and a surprisingly playful cabaret intimacy, cutting his too easily clichéd nihilism with bracing doses of cautious, world-weary optimism. The focus may be on Reed the troubadour/poet, but his unusual, drummer-less band (including Mike Rathke on guitar/synth, bassist Fernando Saunders and the bold, occasionally chilling cello of Joan Scarpantoni) imparts the performance with both a stunning range and dramatic edge, be they smartly rethought Velvets classics or stark, timely revisitations of "The Day John Kennedy Died" and "Men of Good Fortune." It's the rarest and best kind of live album: One that showcases a familiar artist in a compelling new light. -- Jerry McCulley

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars RARE LIVE PERFORMANCES, April 15, 2004

By A Customer

I just want to highlight that this CD includes the first live performances I've heard of "Men of Good Fortune" and "The Bed." I was fortunate enough to see Lou Reed's Berlin tour in December 1973. In fact, I attended his unbelievable performance at The Academy of Music that was captured on "Rock and Roll Animal," (if only there were a DVD of that concert -- he was amazing, totally manic), and I was disappointed that he didn't perform more songs from that album, such as the above mentioned titles. (I still await to hear, one day, a live performance of "Caroline Says II" or its original version "Stephanie Says."

Also, this CD includes, to my knowledge, the first live performance of "Sunday Morning" in many, many years. I remember seeing Lou during his "Mistrial" tour and someone shouted out to hear "Sunday Morning" and he was highly dismissive of the request.

This CD is definitely worth picking up.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Power and Glory, March 30, 2004

By A Customer

Lou Reed made a real effort to SING on this concert tour and he sounds terrific. His singing is the best it's been in 30 years and his guitar playing is as subtle and powerful as anything on "The Blue Mask" or the Velvet Underground albums.

Highlights include
--"How Do You Think it Feels," which starts with a fine, feedback-laden guitar solo and ends with a driving rhythm-guitar shuffle and burn worthy of 1969 Live.
--"Street Hassle," on which Jane Scarpontoni on Cello, Lou and Mike Rathke hit a sublime groove. I wish they had played all of the movements, however.
--"Venus in Furs" with an insane Cello solo--not quite as powerful as seeing Jane straddle and attack the instrument live, but unbelievable nonetheless
--"Sunday Morning": "All those wasted years so close behind" sounds so much sadder and profounder from a 61 year-old Lou, who sings his heart out on this song.
--"Set the Twilight Reeling": an amazing song given the treatment it deserves.

That this is a quietly political album may be overlooked--"Men of Good Fortune often cause empires to fall", "I dreamed I was President of these United States; I dreamed I replaced ignorance, stupidity and hate", and the "dead bodies pilied up in mounds" of Heroin take on a new resonance in the post-911, George W. Bush era in which we live.

Whatever you think of "The Raven", composing that music and putting on that show reinvigorated Lou's theatrical instincts and skills, which are on full display here and only rarely tilt into cheesiness ("I'll be your mirror" ad hoc during Heroin, for example).

This is not a "perfect" album, nor was it a perfect show. The band sounds like they're walking through "Dirty Blvd.", "Vanishing Act" goes on way too long, and "All Tomorrow's Parties" sounds thrown off. And let's not talk about Fernando Saunder's weak Stevie Wonder-like song.

The appeal and power of "Animal Serenade" are, however, undeniable. This album, like the concert was, is surprising, moving, delightful and amazing. The only thing missing is a drummer--how about asking Maureen to join the band on the next tour, Lou?

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just when you thought you'd seen it all...., June 22, 2004

By	Richard B. Hines "Rick Hines" (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

First, I'm writing this to correct the last writer who said there are indeed drums on the album. For the non-musicians out there, the "Roland Drums" used by Saunders are synthesized drums, not an actual drum kit. There is also "piano," which is Rathke playing a guitar synthesizer. Except for the excellent cello (see "Venus In Furs"), vocals, and Lou's guitar, most of the music here is synthesized, albeit played live on stage, not recorded or programmed.

Some seem vexed by the lack of drums on the album (not a lot of bass here either; but that's what the cello's for, right?). I find what makes this album so special is that this has caused Reed to completely rethink his arrangements of tunes old and new. It's the twenty-first century, and Reed shows that his music can be effective in any musical language at any time.

The cello and lack of drums allow many of the songs to reach much deeper psychological spaces than in the original versions. Lou's guitar can still come screeching to the fore much as he used to do in the Robert Quine-era band. "Ecstasy" especially gains from the contrast of subtle rhythmn with searing lead. And the band does rock out when it wants to, but with an interesting, unique sound due to the odd combination of instruments.

As for Lou's vocal abilities, he's not the young man unabashedly belting out "oh baby" at the end of "Rock and Roll" any more. His smoking and lord knows what else has pretty much ravaged his voice, much like Bob Dylan. Sure, he's missing notes, letting his voice croak as often as sing, but that's Lou now. Personally, I think you can hear him putting effort into his singing, and it shows with emotional and effective (if not technically perfect) readings of most songs here.

True, I'd rather have a new album of all-original material, but this is no "holding-pattern best-of" live disc, but a vision of Lou Reed doing what he does best: evading people's expectations and finding something new and exciting in the process. This is proof that MIDI and synthesizers don't always equal cold and mechanical. After forty years in the music business, Lou shows he's still a vital creative force (see also his "Ecstasy" album). This is his best live work since "Live In Italy" twenty years(!) ago.