There aren't too many artists who can bridge the generational divide, or the straight/gay divide, but one of them was Lou Reed.
Lou Reed, the singer-songwriter whose darkly poetic recordings as frontman for the Velvet Underground and as a solo artist provided indispensable blueprints for punk, glam, noise rock and nearly every identifiable strain of indie rock, died on October 27. He was 71.
Equally influenced by Chuck Berry and Arthur Rimbaud, Reed’s spiky, provocative lyrics tackled the experiences of drug addicts, transvestites, street hustlers and depressives with a directness and empathy heretofore unheard in American popular music.
