Lou Reed hated Frank Zappa

We hated him too.

Loved the Ramones… and cocaine.

The irony of Lou Reed dragging someone for hating themselves.

Lou was profoundly troubled. I adore him but, yeeesh, if you can accurately guess the number of issues in his hat, you get to keep it!

My thoughts exactly r3

Reed was the kind of artist who seemed to need bêtes noires in his gunsights. Still, the quote feels self-conscious and more than a little performative. If I remember correctly, it came from a 1970s interview. So Reed was probably jet-lagged, high af on coke, and eager to give the journalist exactly what he thought he wanted.

But really, so much of it is noise. After Zappa's death, it was actually Reed who honored his legacy with one of the more thoughtful tributes that the RNR Hall of Fame ceremony has seen.

There’s also the deeper divide between Reed and Zappa in terms of artistic sensibility. Reed, like Leonard Cohen, came to songwriting through poetry. He studied under Delmore Schwartz at Syracuse, and that background shaped his spartan, word-driven approach to music. It aligned him with the aesthetics of the Downtown scene and helped give rise to a more literary tradition in pop songwriting. Dylan and Cohen were the other two leading figures of that school of songwriting, too, and their combined influence can be traced through later artists like Nick Cave, Shane MacGowan, Lloyd Cole, David Berman, Stephin Merritt (and the list goes on)

Within that tradition, there has often been a certain disdain for music that feels overly elaborate or technically flashy. Progressive rock was frequently the target, both from critics and from musicians within that camp. Jazz fusion caught similar criticism. Zappa’s work, full of irony and wit, doesn’t sit neatly with prog (or any record-store category), but the scale of his ambition made him an easy target for the same kind of dismissals.

Some of that is hipster posturing, but I think it does reflect a genuine sensibility, and one that is alive and well in much of contemporary indie music.

[Quote] Lou Reed hated Frank Zappa

Even a stopped clock tells the time correctly twice a day. Zappa was by all accounts a world class asshole.

Both were high maintenance. R6: I wouldn't lump Dylan in with Cohen, in terms of sensibility. Dylan was pretty much without discipline and Cohen was so self-involved that even his Buddhist monk/guru found his narcissism annoying.

Some years ago I volunteered at a fundraiser where Lou and his wife, Laurie Anderson were guests. Before it started we were warned not to look at or speak to him. We were told he only drank Diet Coke and when I passed by their table later that night, there were at least six bottles of soda on the table lol.

Lou was just a typical pretentious NYC art rocker who believed himself to be bigger and better than he actually was.

R9, why does it always seem like the rudest celebs are generally those way below the A list?

Zappa was no academic.

Reed was so overrated.

R10 - I agree - he was abusive to his girlfriends as well.

To me - they're both very similar in terms of self-importance, mid talent, and being contrarian and fuck you as a personality. Just East Coast vs West Coast versions.

No wonder Lou didn't like looking in a mirror.

R14, the closet kills....or something. I have always found a lot of NYC rock music to be massively overrated versus LA and British rock bands.

R15 - don't know about that - but Velvet Underground really benefitted from having Andy Warhol as their promoter (who also added Nico to the group) and to get them integrated into that scene and the other artistic movements at the time.

No one works in a vacuum not influenced by others - but Lou seemed to just have an air of insufferability. I don't understand how Laurie Anderson ended up with him. I think he stole a lot from her in his latter stuff as well.

The VU did have their moments.

r16 I never understood the Lou-Laurie pairing. I think she was dating someone else when they met. I read an article about them at the time, and some people in their circle speculated he cut her off from her old friends and old life as they were getting serious. I don't think he was very nice to her, and it was especially annoying that she spent years deferring to him and cleaning up his messes ... especially after making videos like this.

Lou did have a decent solo career.

Lou and Laurie duet