Lou Reed – The Blue Mask

“Rock N Roll Animal” Lou Reed takes on middle-age home-life on his 1982 masterpiece The Blue Mask. Reed’s first album after falling in love and overcoming decades of drug and alcohol abuse is quite the opposite of what you might expect from a sober album, The Blue Mask was a complete return to form for the Velvet Underground founder. Brutally honest, Reed tackles normality with humor “I’ve really got a lucky life / My writing, my motorcycle and my wife,” while also touching on the dark urges buried within a recovering addict “Waves of fear, squat on the floor / Looking for some pill, the liquor is gone.” Sonically, the album strips things back to a two-guitars / bass / drums format with arguably Reed’s greatest band featuring fretless bass player Fernando Saunders, the virtuosic Robert Quine on guitar, and future Scritti Politti drummer Fred Maher. Unfortunately the group would only record one other album together (Legendary Hearts), and his marriage to painter Sylvia Morales wouldn’t last, but The Blue Mask remains one of Reed’s greatest albums. “Things are never good / Things go from bad to weird.”

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