'60s rock

Their faces drooping in disbelief, the fans shook their baffled, bewildered heads. "If we hadn't seen him with our own eyes we never would have believe it." They were commenting on Lou Reed's Transformation from a wrestling hero to a savage villain.--"Teenage Wasteland Gazette," Vol.2

Lou Reed has undergone assorted transformations. At one time he was a pirate, and another time he became a transvestite, and even a Lou Reed pamphlet was printed and distributed, claiming that Lou actually had a double who was really responsible for his first album. This year, on the other hand, Lou Reed must carry the role of a social deviant who hides in closets and jerks off at the mere mention of Marilyn Monroe. Essentially, it's back to those blissful days of Warhol legends when living was clean, and everybody could be zombies with black circles around their eyes. That's showbiz, and Lou Reed always did wanna appear in a Broadway musical.

Transformer is further proof even that Lou Reed has turned into something sicker than a homicidal-rapist-mass murderer-porno editor. Far gone is that prevailing commercial bubblegum flair so evident on the first album (e.g. – 'I Love You', 'Lisa Says', 'Love Makes You Feel', etc.). Instead, it's more like what the third Velvet Underground album would have sounded like if David Bowie had been in charge of production back then. There's a couple of cute ditties on here that perhaps belong on We're Only In It For The Money (dumbshit show tunes in which Bowie gets to fill in all the vacant gaps with chugging trombones and tubas), but other than that this album proclaims itself as most masterpieces proclaim themselves: IT GROWS ON YA!!