I'll add to the other comments about the context in which they made this music, to give you a sense of where they were coming from. I read someplace, maybe even

I'll add to the other comments about the context in which they made this music, to give you a sense of where they were coming from. I read someplace, maybe even liner notes for one the Velvet Underground records, that they would fine any band member that played a blues lick. In a sense, as I understand it, they were trying to reinvent rock'n'roll through radical simplification. The Unix way. 3 chords and the truth. If you listen to their music, you can hear them doing it - no blues, no cliche, Lou's radically simple singing, but still building amazing music. > the stuff I've heard on the radio (esp "Walk on the Wild Side") strikes me as pretentious It might seem pretentious, but it was very real to them. The characters in Walk on the Wild Side were real people they knew (look it up online) - far more 'wild' than my life, but really it's about empathy. The images created by those short, one-verse character sketches are amazingly rich, the clear-eyed description of the darkness in their lives, and the empathy for what many (especially then) considered the trash of society is still almost heart-breaking to me. > I always thought "warewolves of london" was Lou Reed. No offense, but you're not grasping Lou Reed if you confused them. It's not just the voice, but what Lou had to say. Here are some more Lou Reed songs to try: * Sweet Jane (live in Italy) [listen to how incredibly simple the music is, but so effective] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ5kab3Mr4M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ5kab3Mr4M * Halloween Parade [Look up the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade if you aren't familiar with it, and remember this was written as the AIDS epidemic was beginning and (IIRC) still the institutions weren't acting, just watching gay people die. The whole New York album is amazing.] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb_r-IwB8t8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb_r-IwB8t8 * Heroin (live in Italy) [Listen loud with headphones. I don't need to try the drug now.] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0odhuRxnYBU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0odhuRxnYBU * Doing the Things That We Want To [a bit dated in sound, but again very real. He's talking about the inspiration of other artists: Sam Sheppard's Fool for Love, Martin Scorsese's New York movies and Travis Bickle, etc.] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SGeNsQttYE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SGeNsQttYE * The first few songs of the 1969 live record Most of all, he has what I want most from an artist: Something to say.