Walk On The Wild Side: Lou Reed’s “RCA and Arista Album Collection” Arrives in October
Lou Reed’s last project is finally seeing release this fall…and it may well be the last word on a major chunk of the late, influential singer-songwriter’s career. Rolling Stone reports that The RCA and Arista Album Collection is due on October 7 from Legacy Recordings. This set spans sixteen albums and seventeen compact discs encompassing Reed’s solo output from 1972-1986 – including such key LPs as the David Bowie-produced Transformer, Berlin and the controversial Metal Machine Music.
The box set contains the following albums, all of which were remastered for this project under the supervision of Reed in the months before his untimely death in October 2013:
- Lou Reed (April 1972)
- Transformer (November 1972)
- Berlin (July 1973)
- Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal (February 1974)
- Sally Can’t Dance (August 1974)
- Metal Machine Music (July 1975)
- Coney Island Baby (December 1975)
- Rock and Roll Heart (October 1976)
- Street Hassle (February 1978)
- Lou Reed Live: Take No Prisoners (November 1978) (2 CDs)
- The Bells (April 1979)
- Growing Up in Public (April 1980)
- The Blue Mask (February 1982)
- Legendary Hearts (March 1983)
- New Sensations (April 1984)
- Mistrial (June 1986)
In addition to the CDs, the box features five 8×10 art prints and a reproduction of a promotional poster. An 80-page book is also enclosed, boasting memorabilia from Reed’s private collection, interviews with Reed and rarely seen artwork and photos and liner notes by co-producer and the artist’s frequent collaborator Hal Willner.
Reed’s widow, musician Laurie Anderson, told Rolling Stone, “Our first date was a trip to the AES (Audio Engineering Society) convention. As wireheads Lou and I loved beautiful recordings and spent years making our studios, instruments and gear the best they could possibly be. Lou put his heart into remastering these records. They are not smoothed out. Sometimes remastering revealed their details and roughness in the most exciting ways. They leap out at you with their original energy. I also love the rare images and the great selection of Lou’s words about his music in this collection,” she commented. “Lou was a superb analyst and sharp critic and the interview excerpts bring back his crazy sense of humor, his generosity and his big view of the world and the meaning of music. Anyone who has loved Lou’s music will be so happy to have this. I’m really grateful to Sony for putting this one out.”
Willner’s liner notes delve further into the process of the box’s creation. “This box set was Lou’s last project,” he explains in his essay. “Everyone who was in that room or around Lou during this period witnessed a beautiful thing as he enthusiastically relived that whole period of his work with the joy of rediscovery, excitedly pointing out subtleties in sounds he hadn’t heard in years. In retrospect, reminiscing about these sessions done less than four months before he died, the moments seem even more magnified.”
The landmark box will be preceded by a Reed tribute being curated by Anderson and Willner at New York’s Lincoln Center. The Bells: A Day Long Celebration of Lou Reed will take place beginning at 10:30 a.m. on July 30 as part of Lincoln Center’s Out of Doors Festival. The RCA and Arista Album Collection arrives from Legacy Recordings on October 7. Pre-order links aren’t yet available, but watch this space!
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15 thoughts on “Walk On The Wild Side: Lou Reed’s “RCA and Arista Album Collection” Arrives in October”
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So, no “Lou Reed Live” (1975) with the remaining of the December 21, 1973 concert?
It was an official RCA record, wasn’t it? Why is it missing here?
How come no cds are available from Steve Young who recently passed away? His catalog is on a few labels A & M, Reprise, Rounder & RCA. I hope some company will get this stuff out.
Steve Young’s family and Bear Family Records are working on a massive “Complete” set(s), including unissued sessions – and unseen live stuff on DVD.
I hope Vic Anesini did the mastering. That would make it an instant purchase for me.
It’s nice to see that Lou, ever the perfectionist, supervised the project. It gives me hope that this will be a truly top-shelf release.
My thoughts exactly. If Vic’s involved it’s a no brainet
I’ve only got the seven first exept “Metal…” on old vinyls so if the price is right – tempting!
You need to own a Copy of MMM. Especially the quad version.
Transformer could have the full set (including the ‘Lou Reed Live’ in the same CD), but I doubt any of these will have additional material. Even the couple of demos that were released with ‘Transformer’, the extra track with ‘Sally can’t Dance’ or the ‘Coney Island’ 6 bonus tracks from the expanded edition CD are probably missing here.
No Lou Reed Live, no Live In Italy or Animal Serenade, all on RCA. Shame. Still, I’ll pre-order it as soon as the links go live!
Mark Lavallee, the live album Animal Serenade can be found on the The Sire Years: Complete Albums Box which came out last October. It was never released on RCA but was released on Sire/ Reprise in 2004. Wikipedia claims that Animal Serenade was released on RCA, but wikipedia would be wrong.
Vlado Meller mastered. Oy. Will have to some reviews before considering this one.
Hal Willner and Rob Santos were also involved in the project, with Lou Himself supervising, so maybe this will turn out OK. I know Meller isn’t thought of particularly highly in certain circles, but not all of his work is trash, from what I recall. I’ll probably wait a couple of weeks for reviews to filter in and then make a decision.
If this is basically the same masterings as the HDTracks releases from last year (which they’ll probably be), then we’re in for some deep trouble. Those have to be some of the worst masterings released of the RCA/Arista material, featuring super-compressed sound and bright EQ, and I believe Sally Can’t Dance also had NR on a couple tracks.
I’ll have to admit, it is a little surprising that Sony waited over a year after releasing the HDTracks version of the set to announce the CD box set itself. If they actually took that time to redo the masterings, then it might be worth a purchase. If it turns out to be the same, however, then it’d be pointless to buy this.
I swear people hadn’t finished reading the tracklisting and they were already griping at the lack of extras.
They weren’t released for whatever reason. Only thing that appeals to me are the very few 12″ mixes and I have those on records.
Who knows, perhaps they’ll release those leftovers another time.
BGO is putting out the Steve Young CDs & I got an e-mail from Andy about my asking them to put them out. We’ll see soon I guess.