Another Lou Reed song for the tribute series. “Vicious” from the album, Transformer.
This time I decided to plug in my P.A. System and guitar amp so you can hear my vocals better. I’m noticing in the other videos that the guitar was louder than the voice and it sounds much better plugged in. From this point on, I think I’ll perform songs plugged in so they can sound better.
3 more songs left. I’m committed to finishing this thing.
Kev
Here is the first of the Lou Reed solo material. A song called, “Dirty Blvd.” from his album, New York.
Enjoy.
The next song is gonna be “Vicious” from the Transformer album.
Kev
Last Velvet Underground song for the Lou Reed tribute series… then I’m off to doing his solo songs next.
Kev
Enjoy!!!
One more Velvet Undergound song after this one and I’m gonna start performing Lou Reed solo stuff. Yes, you can betcha I’ll be doing “Perfect Day” and “Walk On the Wildside” at some point.
Kev
Edit to add: For some reason this video didn’t embed into the post so I’ll just post the link…
Video no. 3 of my tribute series to Lou Reed. Here I am covering, “I’ll Be Your Mirror” by the Velvet Underground. Doing a little finger style guitar as you can see here, I’ve been doing a lot of that.
What song will be next? I’m thinking “Heroin” or “Run Run Run”. Not sure.
Kev
2nd video of my tribute to Lou Reed series. What song is gonna be next?
I’m thinking, “White Light/White Heat” or “I’ll be Your Mirror”. Don’t know yet.
I’m doing Velvet Underground stuff first before his solo songs.
Kev
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
“Who cares? I never wrote for them then, I don’t write for them now. I have no interest in what they have to say about anything. I’m interested in whether I like it. I write for me.” – Lou Reed, in response to negative criticism toward his album, “Lulu” (quote stolen from an interview)
Lou’s got it right.
This is what music should be about. Making music for you and not anybody else. Music shouldn’t be about pleasing everyone.
There’s nothing wrong with liking your own music. As long as you’re proud of your music and enjoy your songs… that’s all that should matter.
If too many people hate your music, screw ’em. It’s not the end of the world. Just play music ’cause you like it… it’s just as simple as that. Don’t let the haters win.
Kev
Here a few questions that I’m wondering now that Lou Reed has passed on:
It’s too early to know the answers to these questions but we’ll find out soon enough.
Kev
Whenever somebody famous and iconic dies… sure enough… there’s always going to be a few who will say negative and hateful things about this person. Yesterday when Lou’s passing was announced… fans were grieving for the late rock star but as expected there’s always going to be some that will continue to talk shit. People will write negative stuff about Lou Reed… mostly because of his album, “Lulu” that he made with Metallica. I am seeing people blaming Lou Reed for ruining Metallica and stuff like that… you get the deal.
I understand that “Lulu” wasn’t everyone’s favorite album but don’t you think it’s a bit too soon to be talking shit and bringing Metallica into this? It’s unfair for Metallica and to Lou’s family who are both going through some tough times. They don’t need to deal with any negativity. These immature idiots need to have some compassion for Lou even if they didn’t like, “Lulu”. A lot of people out there know that “Lulu” wasn’t that great of an album but they grieve for Lou anyway out of respect.
Usually when people start writing negative and hateful things about a famous person’s passing is that they do it for attention pretty much. They just want the attention for having different feelings than everyone else so they try to spark up some controversy just to get some people going. I had to delete a guy from facebook ’cause he wrote negative stuff about Lou’s passing in my newsfeed and will continue to do the same if I see more people do more shit talking about Lou. I will do the same thing here. If you decide to write negative stuff about Lou here on my blog… comment will be removed immediately and you will be banned off my site.
On top of that, I didn’t think “Lulu” wasn’t all that bad of an album and I really liked it. People were so quick hating on that album ’cause people would usually hate everything that Metallica does these days. Metallica can’t seem to keep everyone happy anymore even though they try. I plan to listen to “Lulu” sometime today. I’m also planning on doing a Lou Reed tribute this week for my youtube channel by covering a few of his songs.
No matter what you think of “Lulu”… Lou Reed himself was very proud of that album… look it up when he tried to defend that album from negative criticism… he even called the album the “best thing he has ever done”.
People bashing Metallica all the time and being opinionated over music is just proof that the music world is full of immature assholes. As you all know, I’ve always liked to treat the national music industry in a positive direction and like to keep it that way.
Kev
K'Brocking 
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