Lou Reed - Lou Reed - Acoustic Version (1971)

In 1972, Lou Reed started his post-Velvet Underground solo career with the album simply titled "Lou Reed." Personally, I think it's one of his best solo albums, because his songwriting was a peak. But it's also a flaw album, due to bad production. To give you some idea, Rick Wakeman and Steve Howe from the progressive band Yes are prominently featured all over it. There's nothing wrong with the musical skills of those two guys, but it shows the producer was trying to turn the music into something that didn't fit.

Anyway, just a few days ago (as I write this in March 2022), I found out that in late 2021, an album of Reed's 1971 acoustic demos was officially released, called "RCA Acoustic Demos." You probably haven't heard of this, because it was only released for literally a day in Britain in order to retain the legal rights to the performances, due to the way European copyright law works. I love acoustic versions of songs, so it was a no-brainer for me to post that stuff here. However, it was a long album, over an hour, and I decided to break it in two. I noticed that every single song from the 1972 album "Lou Reed" was played on it, so I've made a version of that album using those acoustic versions. For all the other songs, I've made a second album, which I will be posting shortly.

Technically speaking, one song here is not from that source, "I Love You." I found two acoustic versions of that song. One is from the "RCA Acoustic Demos," and the other is the last song on the "Peel Slowly and See" Velvet Underground box set. Even though that is billed as a Velvet Underground performance, it really was just Reed and his guitar. So I've put that version here, and the other version will go on the other album I'll be posting.

Eight out of the ten songs here were originally done by the Velvet Underground. He essentially cleaned out most of the songs that band never got around to recording, allowing him to put out an album of mostly new tunes later in 1972, "Transformer." So if you think his Velvet Underground stuff is great, which it is, and "Transformer" is great, which it is, you can see why I think this is an excellent album too. But if you have an issue with the production, this allows you to hear it in a completely different way.

This album is 34 minutes long. The sound quality is excellent all the way through.

01 I Can't Stand It (Lou Reed)
02 Going Down (Lou Reed)
03 Walk and Talk It (Lou Reed)
04 Lisa Says (Lou Reed)
05 Berlin (Lou Reed)
06 I Love You (Lou Reed)
07 Wild Child (Lou Reed)
08 Love Makes You Feel [Ten Feet Tall] (Lou Reed)
09 Ride into the Sun (Lou Reed)
10 Ocean (Lou Reed)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15262650/LouR_1971_LuReedAcoustc_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I zoomed in on one section of the official cover and enlarged that. Then I added the same text at the top of his name.