Consumer Guide Album

What Goes On: The Songs of Lou Reed [Ace, 2021]
As punk loyalist Kris Needs's fact-filled notes fail to note, the subtitle on this well-compiled collection of cover versions flirts with a misnomer, because all but six of these 20 Reed songs are also Velvets song--and those six include a Pickwick demo, a pre-Velvets Reed-Cale song, and Nico's 1967 "Wrap Your Trouble in Dreams," with the only full-fledged exceptions an expendable spoken-word closer recited by the honorable James Osterberg, "Perfect Day" from 2007's The Raven, and the inevitable "Walk on the Wild Side." It's enough to leave you shaking your head saying, "Jesus, and he was just getting started." As you'd figure, paying tribute are new wavers honoring their roots--Yo La Tengo do right by "I'm Set Free," the Soft Boys by "Train 'Round the Bend," Echo & the Bunnymen by "Run, Run, Run." Equally impressive is the lyricism of such varied female admirers as June Tabor, Rachel Sweet, Tracey Thorn, and Susanna Hoffs all singing as if Nico has never crossed their minds. And though I'd love to hear a follow-up comp that included, say, "Sally Can't Dance," "Set the Twilight Reeling," "Smalltown," "Egg Cream," and "Ecstasy," I wish I was convinced there were young singers out there savvy enough to pluck those songs from the great tradition. A