Lou Reed, a massively influential songwriter and guitarist who helped shape nearly fifty years of rock music, died today. The cause of his death has not yet been released, but Reed underwent a liver transplant in May.

Look back at Lou Reed's remarkable career in photos

With the Velvet Underground in the late Sixties, Reed fused street-level urgency with elements of European avant-garde music, marrying beauty and noise, while bringing a whole new lyrical honesty to rock & roll poetry. As a restlessly inventive solo artist, from the Seventies into the 2010s, he was chameleonic, thorny and unpredictable, challenging his fans at every turn. Glam, punk and alternative rock are all unthinkable without his revelatory example. "One chord is fine," he once said, alluding to his bare-bones guitar style. "Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz."

Read more: Lou Reed, Velvet Underground Leader and Rock Pioneer, Dead at 71 | Music News | Rolling Stone - rollingstone.com

KrustyKrab schreef:
Jammer dat dat afschuwelijke album met Metallica zijn laatste was. Take a Walk on the Wild side en Perfect Day zijn toch wel parels.

For better or worse, Lou Reed was always Lou Reed: a self-sabotaging, widely disliked man who gave voice to the unwanted and despised. Three years after his death, in advance of a career-spanning box set, a reassessment.