The best tribute to Lou Reed is this album by Joseph Arthur

Lou puts Reed's signature sound into a radically different context

Grammys
(Image credit: (MARIO ANZUONI/Reuters/Corbis))

A mere seven months since his death on Oct. 23, 2013 at the age of 71, Lou Reed has received a magnificently fitting musical tribute that is unlikely to be surpassed in the coming years. The album, titled simply Lou, comes from Joseph Arthur, one of the most gifted, passionate, and prolific singer-songwriters working today. His 2011 release, The Graduation Ceremony, was filled with moments of delicate, exquisite beauty, while The Ballad of Boogie Christ (2013) and The Ballad of Boogie Christ Act II (2014) displayed conceptual and artistic ambition that one rarely hears in pop music today. Arthur deploys all of his many talents on Lou, and the results are impressive.

At his best, Reed was an exceptional lyricist, savagely chronicling a range of urban outcasts, misfits, and addicts. His observations were often shot through with a raw, undigested rage and sadness that could be powerfully intense. Musically, though, Reed was extremely limited, with a voice barely capable of carrying a tune, and a tendency to favor arrangements that foregrounded electric guitar playing that could charitably be described as rudimentary.

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Damon Linker

Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.