I know Lou Reed’s singing can be pretty critical over the years. It wasn’t just the Lulu album with Metallica that what made Lou’s singing critical. People have been criticizing Lou’s singing for years. Lou’s singing can be pretty debatable, yes… and his music wasn’t for everybody.
To be honest though, when you want to become a musician and write songs… you don’t really need to be a great singer to do what you wanna do. I mean… look at musicians like Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, Billy Corgan, Tom Petty, Kurt Cobain, Neil Young, etc. They weren’t the greatest singers in the world. They sing anyway ’cause that’s what they wanted to do.
In music, I always saw vocals as something less-important. I’m more worried about how good the song is than how good the singing is. You don’t need to be a trained singer or be an opera singer with a powerful voice. I care most for the song’s melody. As long as the melody is good and the lyrics are written well… who cares about the singing, ya know? I think it’s pretty unfair that people would criticize a performer’s singing.
Sure… Lou Reed sings like he’s using his regular speaking voice and he’s not actually singing… but there are some songs where he actually sang on. Perfectly example, he showed his real singing chops for the hit, “Perfect Day”. His vocals were beautiful in that song.
With all this being said, if you don’t sing good… who cares. If you want to play music, write songs and sing… then do it. As long as your songs are good… people won’t care whether your singing is good or not. You don’t have to be the best singer in the world like all those kids in American Idol, The Voice, etc. All that is a load of crock anyways.
I was never professionally trained but I’m still trying to find ways to get better. I’m teaching myself to sing better ’cause I wanna be able to sing the high notes which is what I’m working with my own music. Don’t worry about trying to be the next Celine Dion or Chris Cornell. Vocals aren’t important at all. It’s the song. The music. If you don’t have the singing chops… you can just use your regular speaking voice as your vocals. I’ve always felt that if you write your own music, you sing it yourself… it didn’t matter whether your voice was good or not.
A lot of people listen to music ’cause they look for the best “singing” voice but not me. I’m more worried about how the song is written like I said: the melody, harmony, lyrical structure, the music, the guitar parts, etc.
Back to Lou Reed… he probably knew that he wasn’t that great of a singer… that’s why he had Nico sing in the Velvet Underground ’cause there were some parts in the songs that he couldn’t sing himself. Even if Lou wasn’t that great of a singer… he was still the master at giving what the songs needed.
Even if Lou Reed has passed away people are still criticizing his singing over the years so I thought I would write in my thoughts in response to all of this.
Kev
K'Brocking 
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