Different Times: Lou Reed in the '70s

Lou Reed

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 4, 1996)
• Original Release Date: June 4, 1996
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: RCA
• ASIN: B000002WXM
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #135,686 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars IF YOU OWN ONE LOU ALBUM, MAKE IT THIS ONE!, April 24, 2005

By	Coleen "frankie-machine" (Down in the alley) - See all my reviews

This is the best collection of Lou Reed's music there is! It includes all his essential 70's songs, which are Lou at his best.
There's even tracks from his once-rare very first solo album, tracks that the Velvets also recorded, like "Lisa Says". The only way this collection could be any better is if it were remastered. It sounds great, but could sound even better if it were remastered. Still, if you crank it up LOUD, it is AWESOME, and a 5 star album all-the-way through! THE most essential Lou Reed CD!

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential!, July 24, 2000

By	Ralph Quirino (Keswick, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

While it would be tempting to give a Five Star rating to Arista's recent Definitive Collection, RCA's Different Times anthology earns it hands-down thanks to a great set that collects Lou's finest songs from his best period: the seventies. Don't get me wrong: albums like The Bells, Growing Up In Public and Street Hassle (from his Arista years)all contained great moments. As did his eighties RCA albums like The Blue Mask and New Sensations. But this collection has the songs that made him a critical darling: "Vicious", "Walk On The Wild Side", "I Can't Stand It", etc. And, thank heavens, it doesn't include ANYTHING from Metal Machine Music! A key seventies anthology which shows off Reed's genius with panache and reverence.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Daddy Lou In His "Decadent" Prime, September 24, 2006

By	Richard Kearney (Teaneck, NJ United States) - See all my reviews

A Lou Reed anthology is a tough proposition, and there have been plenty of botched attempts. If you've got the money, you could shell out for sets like "Rock and Roll Diary," "Between Thought and Expression," "The Definitive Collection" (NOT!!) or "NYC Man: The Ultimate Lou Reed Collection," but I find all of these to be highly problematic. Some do a mostly poor job of incorporating tracks from the Velvet Underground, others place too much emphasis on one or another phase of Reed's career or styles, and they just don't sound right.

Try to distill things down to a single disc and you've got a bigger challenge. RCA gave it a shot (early in Reed's solo career) with "Walk on the Wild Side," which takes you up to 1977, but I like the mix on this set - which covers the same period - better. Personal taste aside, I think the track selection offers a more representative overview of Reed's work from the 1972-1976 period, with more songs from "Berlin," "Sally Can't Dance," and "Coney Island Baby" than you'll find on the RCA compilation. The difference is the share given to "Rock'n'Roll Animal," reduced to just one cut on this set. That might seem like a cheat to those who regard "Rock'n'Roll Animal" as Reed's best album from this period, but the plain fact is that all but one song on "Animal" is a Velvets tune, and while those fine songs remain staples of Reed's live shows they weren't really what Reed was about in the '70s.

The bottom line is that - even at his primitive best - Reed is a difficult, challenging songwriter and performer, not easy to boil down to a few tracks. But I think this set does a better job than most of getting the casual listener interested in exploring more of that big, messy back-catalog, warts and all. In the meantime, enjoy the legend of "decadent" Lou at his best on this 17-track sampler, which concludes with the beautiful and touching "Coney Island Baby," effectively putting the lie to the legend. I guess life is complex after all. Long live Daddy Lou!