In 1972, just two years after abandoning The Velvet Underground, frontman extraordinaire Lou Reed decided to embark on a solo odyssey just as the sleazy slither of the glam-rock movement had begun to win over the hearts, minds, and grinding hips of a generation when bands such as Mott The Hoople, David Bowie, and T-Rex became painted, androgynous deities.
After his adequate but unspectacular eponymous debut, Reed was savvy enough to sense the growing popularity of glam and its potential to be the vehicle for his musical rebirth. He also utilized the immense talents of David Bowie and Mick Ronson as the figurative midwives for the delivery of his first masterpiece, Transformer. While listeners will no doubt hear the more overt trappings of glam throughout the album, it becomes apparent that Reed's intentions are far more interesting than simply aping the horny frills and ass-shaking grooves of his contemporaries, instead simultaneously embracing and subverting the conventions of what some might have considered a fun, yet frivolous, sound.
Within the tightly wound genre of glam-rock lies a core of showy exuberance, and while Bowie and Ronson's tutelage may have led him to embrace their sound, Reed's natural personality and drowsy, dispassionate delivery gently mock listeners' expectations by defying our predetermined notions of sexy excitement with a familiar backdrop blended with elements of winking irony and anti-theatrics. Opening track "Vicious," for example, finds Lou monotonally drawling verses about suffering absurd cruelties: "You hit me with a flower/ You do it every hour/ Oh baby, you're so vicious," as the periodic punch of Mick Ronson's guitar lines throw up showers of golden sparks between lines, finally culminating in a wah-wah-fueled solo that dances and contorts like a serpentine livewire, playing up the disparity between the song's lyrical content and its title and music. Reed's brand of irony is not completely relegated to the humorous or offbeat, as evidenced by the morose piano ballad, "Perfect Day," which juxtaposes the seemingly pleasant and sedate activities of a couple in love with a melancholic dirge steeped in a black cup of ennui and defeat stirred by the swelling of bittersweet strings.
Despite all of that, Reed is just as adept at playing the genre straight for the eyeliner set. He churns out a couple of gems replete with fuzzy riffs and soulful background singers on "Andy's Chest" and "Wagon Wheel." Most impressive, however, is “Satellite of Love,” a dreamy cabaret-flavored piano ballad whose Hunky Dory-esque tone eventually dissolves into a sublime melange of subtle finger snaps, insistent horns, and spacey background vocals that sound like a handful of helium-filled Bolans being released into orbit.
Looking back on the diverse body of Lou Reed's work, it turns out that not only was the title Transformer the name of the record that put him back on the map, but may also have been a prescient wink from a man who always knew that his greatest strength would be that of fearless adaptability.
