Lou Reed Sucks.

I'm sorry, but he does.

I used to really like Lou Reed. "Walk on the Wild Side" and "Perfect Day" were the types of songs I always wanted to listen to while doing nothing else, so worthy of listening were they.

I don't know what happened. Maybe he's just lost his songwriting touch. Maybe it was the fact that he got commissioned to write the song in question and he didn't give a fuck that it sucked. But I fear he actually thinks the song is good.

You see, a few years back, I was the Associate and Line-Producer on a film called Nanking. The producer/funder of the film commissioned Lou Reed to write two original songs for the movie.

We did not use the songs in the movie. For those of you who haven't seen the film, it's about the Japanese invasion of Nanking during the winter of 1937-38. The non-Chinese foreigners living in Nanking at the time established a safety zone - with no weaponry, authority or real jurisdiction. It truly is a moving story and they saved hundreds of thousands of civilian lives - as it seemed the Japanese were basically on order to kill and/or rape everyone in their path - soldier or otherwise.

Lou Reed's song Safety Zone. Geesh. It's bad. I hate to disparage a musical icon, but it is seriously bad. Have a listen and let me know what you think.

Here's the link for Safety Zone: (If this link doesn't work, just search Lou Reed Safety Zone)

My favorite bad line is, "rape at the end of a bayonet..."

The good news is, his second song Gravity is slightly less bad. It's still sort of a crap song. Maybe I've grown out of my Lou-Reed-liking phase. All I know is, when I'm creating my own films and television shows, I will not be commissioning Lou Reed to write anything, especially because he won't take "notes" on his original, commissioned compositions.

Gravity link.

Don't forget to let me know what you think.