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- Date Released: August 15, 2006
- Genre: Rock/Pop
- Style: Pop
- Label: RCA/Legacy
- Copyright: (P) 1976, 1992, 2006 BMG Music
Low-budget, FM-friendly gutter dramas, delivered deadpan
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We Say...
Lou Reed's sixth solo studio album is so casually sleazy that it practically comes with its own dose of crabs. And like so much sleaze, this 1976 disc was born of desperation: The former Velvet Underground frontman had no money or apartment, was being sued by his former manager, and owed five years of back taxes. His hotel bill was fronted by the head of the same record label he attacked with 1975's Metal Machine Music, a double LP of pure feedback.
Humility didn't come naturally to Reed: "I'm just a gift to the women of this world" is a joke cracked in "A Gift" that packs an unspoken punch line: Reed's then-current partner was transgendered. Reflecting his world at the time, Coney Island Baby's characters occupy rungs of the social ladder several steps lower than the Warhol demimonde celebrated in 1972's Transformer: Of course "Crazy Feeling"'s dream lover is a transsexual prostitute, but it's even more likely that the "Kicks" protagonist is a closet case who kills potential partners to deny his own sexuality. The uncluttered and cleanly recorded guitar-based arrangements that set Reed's compellingly sordid scenes yield low-budget, yet FM-friendly, results. Nothing competes with the deadpan star of these gutter dramas, and the documentary-like directness of the music humanizes his unsparing lyrics.
For his title track, the singer peels layers from his own bad-boy persona: As a two-chord shuffle evokes the doo-wop of his Brooklyn childhood, Reed's thoughts drift back to the days when he "wanted to play football for the coach." It was then when Lou endured shock therapy to squash his same-sex desires, and so "the glory of love" celebrated in the chorus is as sad as it is uplifting. Even when aiming to play it straight, Reed throws a curve. -
They Say...
From 1972's Transformer onward, Lou Reed spent most of the '70s playing the druggy decadence card for all it was worth, with increasingly mixed results. But on 1976's Coney Island Baby, Reed's songwriting began to move into warmer, more compassionate territory, and the result was his most approachable album since Loaded. On most of the tracks, Reed stripped his band back down to guitar, bass, and drums, and the results were both leaner and a lot more comfortable than the leaden over-production of Sally Can't Dance or Berlin. "Crazy Feeling," "She's My Best Friend," and "Coney Island Baby" found Reed actually writing recognizable love songs for a change, and while Reed pursued his traditional interest in the underside of the hipster's life on "Charlie's Girl" and "Nobody's Business," he did so with a breezy, freewheeling air that was truly a relief after the lethargic tone of Sally Can't Dance. "Kicks" used an audio-tape collage to generate atmospheric tension that gave its tale of drugs and death a chilling quality that was far more effective than his usual blasé take on the subject, and "Coney Island Baby" was the polar opposite, a song about love and regret that was as sincere and heart-tugging as anything the man has ever recorded. Coney Island Baby sounds casual on the surface, but emotionally it's as compelling as anything Lou Reed released in the 1970s, and proved he could write about real people with recognizable emotions as well as anyone in rock music -- something you might not have guessed from most of the solo albums that preceded it. [In 2006, Sony BMG/Legacy released an expanded and remastered version of Coney Island Baby -- a welcome surprise, since it was never one of Reed's more popular albums, even though it ranks with his best work of the decade. In addition to a sonically upgraded presentation of its original eight songs, the 2006 edition includes "Nowhere at All," a emphatic and hard-edged B-side; alternate versions of "Crazy Feeling," "She's My Best Friend," and "Coney Island Baby" that rock harder but also sound a good bit sloppier; and early drafts (with different lyrics) of two songs that would later surface on 1978's striking Street Hassle, "Downtown Dirt" and "Leave Me Alone." For the most part, the bonus tracks follow a different path than the rest of the material on Coney Island Baby, and it sounds like Reed was wise to leave these takes on the shelf, but they also offer a fascinating insight into his working process and how this minor masterpiece came to be. Hopefully Sony BMG/Legacy will follow this by upgrading a few more gems from Reed's back catalog.]
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| 01. |  |
Crazy Feeling |
2:50 |
|
| 02. | |
Charley's Girl |
2:35 |
|
| 03. | |
She's My Best Friend |
5:59 |
|
| 04. | |
Kicks |
6:00 |
|
| 05. | |
A Gift |
3:45 |
|
| 06. | |
Ooohhh Baby |
3:45 |
|
| 07. | |
Nobody's Business |
3:45 |
|
| 08. | |
Coney Island Baby |
6:35 |
|
| 09. | |
Nowhere At All |
3:10 |
|
| 10. | |
Downtown Dirt |
4:17 |
|
| 11. | |
Leave Me Alone |
5:33 |
|
| 12. | |
Crazy Feeling |
2:38 |
|
| 13. | |
She's My Best Friend |
4:09 |
|
| 14. | |
Coney Island Baby |
5:47 |
|
14 Total Tracks, 60:48 Total Length
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Credits
- Lou Reed - Guitar // Lou Reed - Piano // Lou Reed - Vocals // Lou Reed - Vocals (Background) // Lou Reed - Producer // Lou Reed - Reissue Producer // Lou Reed - Mixing // Lou Reed - Original Recording Producer // Michael Wendroff - Vocals (Background) // Michael Wendroff - Mixing // Godfrey Diamond - Vocals (Background) // Godfrey Diamond - Engineer // Godfrey Diamond - Mixing // Godfrey Diamond - Original Recording Producer // Michael Fonfara - Keyboards // Steve Katz - Producer // Bob Kulick - Guitar // Jose Luis Rodríguez - Mastering // Jose Luis Rodríguez - Mastering // Michael Suchorsky - Drums // Joanne Vent - Vocals (Background) // Bruce Yaw - Bass // Bruce Yaw - Bass (Electric) // Bruce Yaw - Bass (Acoustic) // Doug Yule - Bass // Bob Ringe - Representation // Howard Fritzson - Art Direction // Mick Rock - Art Direction // Mick Rock - Design // Mick Rock - Photography // Joel Whitburn - Chart Information // Jeffrey Schulz - Design // Rob Santos - Reissue Producer // Bob Meday - Drums // Tom Sarig - Management // Anthony Ruotolo - Assistant Engineer // Emily Lazar - Mastering // Jeremy Holiday - A&R // Chris Shaw - Mixing // Sarah Register - Assistant
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