Lou Reed

The minute David Bowie hit it big, he used his clout to introduce his musical hero, Lou Reed, to an audience beyond himself, Roxy Music and a few critics. Overall, this isn't Reed's greatest set of songs, but with a slew of subversive oddities like "Satellite of Love" joining the brilliant "Walk on the Wild Side" and "Perfect Day," the entire album gets raised to the level of "essential classic." The censors were so square that they didn't realize what was going on in "Wild Side" and allowed it to play on the radio.

All that's left of this great singer and songwriter is his sly intelligence, and sometimes I'm not so sure about that. Whether this is scenemaking music or anti-scenemaking music doesn't matter--it's effete, ingrown, stripped to inessentials. First line of strongest song: "Vicious, you hit me with a flower." (Grade - B-)