Today, I don`t really listen to either of these albums very often; TMR is too exhausting, and VU is too flawed, but my vote goes unhesitatingly to TMR because of the hours of pleasure it has given me in the past.
VU has some great tracks, but it also has a couple of throw-aways, and even the great tracks (with the possible exception of Heroin) have their slack moments. Sunday Morning for instance, doesn`t really work for me; it`s slow, which is ok, but isn`t there something false or unconvincing about Lou Reed`s crooning style ? I wish they`d given the song to Nico instead - her languid, smokey voice would`ve suited the mood of the song so well... But for me, this is an album of "what ifs", and gives the impression of being too hurriedly put together.
Beefheart, on the other hand, never lets the pace slacken; he packs something of interest into almost ever second of the album. He demanded a lot from the Magic Band, and though listening to TMR demands a lot from us, the rewards make it worthwhile; the vitality of invention, the extraordinarily complex playing, and of course the lyrics.
Maybe it`s a bit unfair to compare two lyricists with such different intentions and styles, but this is a "vs" thread after all, so here goes:-
First, an example of Lou Reed`s lyrics, which are usually described as "spare" :-
"He`s never early, he`s always late.
First thing you learn is that you`ve always got to wait.
I`m waiting for my man "
Here, LR takes three lines to tell us that he`s waiting for a drug dealer who isn`t punctual. Set apart from the sinister chugging beat of the music, the main strength or the lyrics comes from the frisson that it`s about drugs, not from the words themselves. If we imagine that LR is singing about his mailman, we can see just how flat his words are, and we have to wonder if "spare" is not a euphemism for "boring".
Then we have Captain Beefheart :-
Broma' seltzer blue umbrella keeps her up off the ground.
Round red sombreros wrap her high-tap horsey shoes;
When she unfurls her umbrella, Pachuco`s got the blues.
In his three lines the vocabulary is rich, the imagery is vivid and the ideas are tumbling over each other to get out. So, yes, I`m voting for Trout Mask.
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"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953
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