Velvet Underground veterans Lou Reed and John Cale came together after their mentor Andy Warhol's death to create the 1990 album Songs for Drella. It's an homage to Warhol (Dracula + Cinderella = Drella, a fond nickname from the Sixties), but also a meditation on art, friendship and loss. The sound is stripped down and intense (though sometimes playful, too) -- Lou on electric guitar, Cale on keyboards and viola.
Mark Deming showers the album with various adjectives in his All Music review. Since I agree with his assessment, here they are: cerebral, literate, intimate, theatrical, tense/anxious, autumnal, confident, refined/mannered, bittersweet, reverent, wistful, plaintive, reflective, somber.
A beautiful, thoughtful album but not for all tastes. Just a few rockers here (like "Work," an anthem for artists of all kinds), yet a little too rough for tender classicists. It has been compared to a memorable novel in its staying power.
Tracks:
Smalltown
Open House
Style It Takes (Cale vox)
Work
Trouble with Classicists (Cale vox)
Starlight
Faces and Names (Cale vox)
Images
Slip Away (A Warning)
It Wasn't Me
I Believe
Nobody But You
A Dream (Cale vox)
Forever Changed (Cale vox)
Hello It's Me
Today's Rune: Breakthrough.
3 comments:
Great record. I love how Lou stood up for Andy.
If it were two gals instead of two dudes perhaps it would've been "Cinderella + Dracula = Cinderacula." Just a thought.
Another one I've overlooked - thinking it would be drab and uninspired. Which of course you've explained that it's not. I should look into Cale more - apart from his Island stuff there must be lots of (for me) unearthed gems.
The 'Work' track sounds interesting - it can't be a cover of the excellent Blue Orchids track - the under-rated Manc band who backed Nico in the early 80s can it? Wishful thinking...
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