Like almost anything Reed has ever done, it’s a mixed bag, but what emerges in the end is a fascinating, compelling portrait of one of the most important artists of the last 30 years.
Thus far reviewers have been foaming at the mouth trying to describe what an ungainly and unprecedented enterprise is The Raven, but Reed has always been at his best when there’s a thread to his threnodies, from New York to Berlin.
"I PLAY rock'n'roll and that's it. That's all I do and it's all I've ever wanted to do. It's the rock'n'roll that kept us alive," Lou Reed once declared proudly.
Whether the name Andy Warhol suggests one of the most influential and innovative movers in the arts and popular culture this century, or just some chancer who made pots of money painting soup cans, Songs For Drella stands in its own right as a highly compelling piece of work.
