One year ago today, Lou Reed died. A year or two before that, he released his final album, which he described - in his own inimitable way - as "maybe the greatest thing anyone has ever done". That album was Lulu, a fusion of metal, poetry and nineteenth-century German drama, made in collaboration with Metallica. The responses from reviewers were predictable - they were baffled at best and outright scornful at worst, as they always are to anything outside their comfort zone. Hell, even I hated it when I first heard it. But now, a year on from Reed's death, it seems like a good time to revisit an album that, even if it didn't quite live up to its creator's hyperbole, was still a major work by one of the greatest songwriters of the 20th century.
Lulu kicks off simply, with the strummed acoustic guitar and sung/spoken lyrics that kick off "Brandenburg Gate". After a few bars of that, it explodes, with James Hetfield playing a simple yet stunning chord progression that would not have sounded out of place on Set the Twilight Reeling. The lyrics are difficult to decipher at times, but overall the song paints a picture of someone arriving in a new town, with a lot of history behind her. Lulu, the eponymous protagonist of this album, has arrived. If she is a stranger in a strange land in that song, in the next she's moved up the ladder quite a bit. "The View" presents Lulu as a deity, a creature of immense and destructive sexual power. It also contains some of Reed's greatest lyrics - "I am the truth, the beauty / That causes you to cross / Your sacred boundaries / I have no morals / Some think me cheap / And someone who despises / The normalcy of heartbreak / The purity of love / But I worship the young / And just-formed angel / Who sits upon the pin of lust". That is pure poetry. She possesses all the dark power of a character in a Howard Barker play - hers is a sexuality that destroys all those drawn into her orbit - and yes, she is the table.
The next track, "Pumping Blood," is "Venus in Furs" turned up to 11. This is no longer sex as a weapon - this is pure sex, albeit in a uniquely Lou Reed way. The opening to "Mistress Dread" drags a little - well, it drags a lot - but once Reed starts singing, it's worth it. "insert a fist, an arm / Some lost appendage / Please open me I beg" - those lyrics, man. This is something beyond simple submission - like Sarah Kane's Phaedra, Lulu is a character who wants to be completely subsumed into her lover. This is love as self-abnegation. "Iced Honey" is about the impossibility of that kind of love, and the pain that all love entails, and as such it's an incredibly moving song even with James Hetfield groaning in the background. "Cheat on Me" has another overlong intro which, coupled with Hetfield's desperate attempts to hit the notes, makes it weaker than the preceding songs. There are some great lines, though, and it's a pretty effective song of self-loathing - Lulu has hit rock bottom. "Frustration" switches the perspective around, giving us the point of view of one of Lulu's jealous, obsessed lovers. There are moments that remind me of nothing so much as Scott Walker.
"Little Dog" is chilling, though I'm not sure where it fits into the narrative. Are we hearing Lulu's voice, or that of the previous song's narrator? It seems as though we're getting a new part of Lulu here - she's become a prostitute and returned to her position as sexual force and agent of domination from "The View". But there's a sadness in this song that I can't quite figure out. "Dragon" gives us the other side of the coin - the spurned lover condemns Lulu over a serviceable metal riff. But throughout the vitriol, there runs a thread of love - despite all, this man cannot help but care for Lulu. "Junior Dad," the album's final song, is a climactic outpouring of desperate love, and one of Lou Reed's finest songs.
In conclusion, Lulu was one of Lou Reed's best albums. If you're a Lou Reed fan, buy it. If you're a Metallica fan, get your parents to buy it for you (also, you can read! Well done!)
His week still beats your year.
Monday 27 October 2014
Saturday 18 October 2014
Review - Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen
Popular Problems
Leonard Cohen has never been one to put too much thought into his album covers - most of them just consist of a picture of his face - so it's no surprise that the cover of his new record looks like it was put together using ClipArt. Still, when you spend decades working on a single song, I guess you don't have much time left to worry about the packaging, and when the songs are this good, what does it matter what the album looks like? And the songs are great. Over his last three albums, Cohen has moved away from the dense, symbolically rich language that has been his trademark, and towards a sparser, simpler lyrical style more reminiscent of his poetry. Compare, for example, the following lines from "Sing Another Song, Boys" -
Popular Problems
Leonard Cohen has never been one to put too much thought into his album covers - most of them just consist of a picture of his face - so it's no surprise that the cover of his new record looks like it was put together using ClipArt. Still, when you spend decades working on a single song, I guess you don't have much time left to worry about the packaging, and when the songs are this good, what does it matter what the album looks like? And the songs are great. Over his last three albums, Cohen has moved away from the dense, symbolically rich language that has been his trademark, and towards a sparser, simpler lyrical style more reminiscent of his poetry. Compare, for example, the following lines from "Sing Another Song, Boys" -
His fingernails
I see they are broken
His ships,
They are all on fire
The money-lender's lovely little daughter
She's eaten, ah she's eaten with desire
With the following, from Popular Problems' "Did I Ever Love You?" -
Did I ever love you?
Did I ever need you?
Did I ever fight you?
Did I ever want you?
Like Beckett, Cohen is condensing his language, trying to strip it back to the absolute bare minimum, and the same could be said of the production. Gone are the lush strings of Songs of Leonard Cohen, the synth-pop pomp of I'm Your Man and the jazz arrangements of Ten New Songs. Instead, the arrangements on Popular Problems are, for the most part, simple, to the point where - if not for the backing singers - this album sounds like it could have been recorded in someone's living room. In fact, I'm pretty sure some tracks were - there's one song in particular where the clacking of the keys on Cohen's electric keyboard is clearly audible. But don't think that that is a criticism - like the lyrics, the bare-bones production is that way because that's the way it should be, and what would sound half-arsed on any other record sounds perfect here. Simplicity is an art, like everything else - Len does it exceptionally well.
One of the best things about this album is the vocals. Since the '90s, Cohen has proven that he is one of the best vocalists on the planet, and his singing has never been better than now. Whether he's growling out the ominous "Nevermind" or singing the wistful chorus of "Samson in New Orleans," his voice is a formidable instrument despite - and because of - its limitations. From a technical point of view, he has the vocal range of a kazoo, but that's why he's so great - because he can't hit so many notes as other singers, he has had to become really, really good at the important part of singing - the emotion. And noone puts more feeling into a vocal performance than Leonard Cohen.
All in all, this is a great album.
Rating - 10/10
Monday 13 October 2014
Lars von Trier Part 3 - Nymphomaniac
A word of advice for anyone thinking of watching this film - don't come into it expecting to be turned on. This film is not only unerotic, it is anti-erotic - the sex in this film is not the sex you'll find in pornography, any more than the violence in this film is the same as the violence in Die Hard. This is not a film about sex - it is, rather, a film about sexuality. Also, make no mistake about it, this is one film. Nymphomaniac may be split into two volumes for the sake of marketing, but it is one work and should be viewed as a whole. Don't let the length put you off (to use a rather apt phrase) - this is on Trier's longest film yet, but it feels about half the length of most of his other works.
I said before that this is a film about sexuality - more precisely, it is about the transgressive, destructive potential of sexuality. At one point, Jo - the main character - is forced to attend a support group for sex addicts. She introduces herself with the words, "My name is Jo, and I am a nymphomaniac." She refuses to identify as a sex addict, insisting instead on the older, more romantic term. But there is also a qualitative difference - Jo does not fit the stereotype of the poor, innocent woman with daddy issues who sleeps around to get approval and a sense of self-worth. She fucks because she loves to fuck. When she is pressed by the support group to admit that there is something wrong with her, she retorts, "I love myself. I love my cunt. And I love my filthy, sinful lust." Throughout the film, Jo insists on the validity of her sex drive, although of course her character is not that simple. She carries a great deal of self-loathing with her, judging herself very harshly for her faults, but she submits no noone's judgement but her own. The only exception to this is the self-proclaimed "asexual" played by Stellan Skarsgald (and if you're wondering why I put the term asexual in quotation marks - watch the film). Ironically, Skarsgald's character does not condemn Jo, instead validating her own argument that "all that makes me different from other people is that I have always demanded more from the sunset". The centre of the film is Jo's status as a transgressive individual - her excessive desire for sex is part of it, but more important is the fact that this is sex divorced from love and procreation. The idea of a character who is fundamentally at odds with society is a running theme in von Trier's films - his characters are often isolated, be it by social circumstances (Dancer in the Dark, Dogville), by mental illness (Melancholia, Antichrist) or, as in Jo's case, by uncontrollable sexuality. Von Trier seems fascinated by the outsider, and over the course of this film Jo is an outsider on many levels. At school, she forms a club of girls who use promiscuity as a weapon against the social codes of love and procreation; later, she becomes involved in the outlaw sexuality of the sadist K, to the eventual destruction of her family life. Finally, she becomes a debt collector, an outlaw of the classic, criminal variety. She is another of von Trier's existential rebels, but what makes the film a cut above von Trier's other work is that she is far more complex than that.
In his other films, von Trier's protagonists - while well-written - have been there to serve a role or illustrate an idea, and as such they tend to be quite one-dimensional. With Jo, though, he has created a character who is complex enough to be a real person - analyse her how you will, she is impossible to pin down or categorise, and that is what makes her special. I could go on for hours about this film, but I'll leave it with one final word - this may well be von Trier's crowning acheivement.
I said before that this is a film about sexuality - more precisely, it is about the transgressive, destructive potential of sexuality. At one point, Jo - the main character - is forced to attend a support group for sex addicts. She introduces herself with the words, "My name is Jo, and I am a nymphomaniac." She refuses to identify as a sex addict, insisting instead on the older, more romantic term. But there is also a qualitative difference - Jo does not fit the stereotype of the poor, innocent woman with daddy issues who sleeps around to get approval and a sense of self-worth. She fucks because she loves to fuck. When she is pressed by the support group to admit that there is something wrong with her, she retorts, "I love myself. I love my cunt. And I love my filthy, sinful lust." Throughout the film, Jo insists on the validity of her sex drive, although of course her character is not that simple. She carries a great deal of self-loathing with her, judging herself very harshly for her faults, but she submits no noone's judgement but her own. The only exception to this is the self-proclaimed "asexual" played by Stellan Skarsgald (and if you're wondering why I put the term asexual in quotation marks - watch the film). Ironically, Skarsgald's character does not condemn Jo, instead validating her own argument that "all that makes me different from other people is that I have always demanded more from the sunset". The centre of the film is Jo's status as a transgressive individual - her excessive desire for sex is part of it, but more important is the fact that this is sex divorced from love and procreation. The idea of a character who is fundamentally at odds with society is a running theme in von Trier's films - his characters are often isolated, be it by social circumstances (Dancer in the Dark, Dogville), by mental illness (Melancholia, Antichrist) or, as in Jo's case, by uncontrollable sexuality. Von Trier seems fascinated by the outsider, and over the course of this film Jo is an outsider on many levels. At school, she forms a club of girls who use promiscuity as a weapon against the social codes of love and procreation; later, she becomes involved in the outlaw sexuality of the sadist K, to the eventual destruction of her family life. Finally, she becomes a debt collector, an outlaw of the classic, criminal variety. She is another of von Trier's existential rebels, but what makes the film a cut above von Trier's other work is that she is far more complex than that.
In his other films, von Trier's protagonists - while well-written - have been there to serve a role or illustrate an idea, and as such they tend to be quite one-dimensional. With Jo, though, he has created a character who is complex enough to be a real person - analyse her how you will, she is impossible to pin down or categorise, and that is what makes her special. I could go on for hours about this film, but I'll leave it with one final word - this may well be von Trier's crowning acheivement.
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