Album review

Lou Reed - Take No Prisoners

Never one for the slick, safe live recording, Reed outdid himself on this 1978 double. Street Hassle (also '78) had brought him halfway back from the brink he'd braved with Metal Machine Music, but here the well-known songs' loose outlines are just irrelevant backdrops for extended miserabilist rants against fans, friends and critics.

A cross between Lenny Bruce and Alex Ferguson, Lou bitches about the injustice of it all as the nervous, ignored band jam through "Sweet Jane", "Walk On The Wild Side" et al. Reed as great, grizzling punk grinch.

Rating: 4 / 10


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Bruce Springsteen, Tame Impala, Rodriguez, George Clinton, John Fogerty, Prince and George Jones in new Uncut


I would have bought the issue of Melody Maker in which I first read about Bruce Springsteen on my way into the art school in Newport, where in March 1973 I was in my last term, only a few months away from moving to London and not long after that fetching up on MM as a junior reporter/feature...

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