Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #41438 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-06-11
• Rating: Exempt
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 80 minutes

Special Features
16:9 Wide Screen
DVD 5
English
Region 0
Dolby Digital Stereo English
Dolby Digital Stereo
Dutch\French\German\Italian\Portuguese\Spanish

Synopsis
Lou Reed's TRANSFORMER, his second album after the breakup of the Velvet Underground, has garnered a reputation as one of the best albums of the 1970s, and for good reason. A cohesive album whose more obscure tracks such as "Andy's Chest" and "Goodnight Ladies" hold up well against popular classics like "Satellite of Love" and "Walk on the Wild Side," TRANSFORMER easily ranks with BERLIN and ROCK AND ROLL ANIMAL as one of Reed's most impressive post-VU accomplishments. This documentary takes a track by track look at the making of the record with both Mr. Reed and his engineer Ken Scott poring over the original multi-tracks for the album. Additionally, there is archival footage of the Velvet Underground, an interview with the Eurythmics' Dave Stewart and a discussion with bassist Herbie Flowers about the origins of the famous bassline for "Walk on the Wild Side."

Customer Reviews

A breathtaking retrospective of Lou Reed's classic album
For a Lou reed fan, this is a rare treat to see how the Transformer album was made track by track, with documentary input by all concerned (musicians and technicians) and new acoustic versions of key tracks performed by Lou. It's great to hear Bowie, Mick Ronson, Herbie Flowers and others describe the working environment around the making of the album, and Lou'd temperamental idiosyncracies. The material is detailed enough for hard-core fans but sufficiently general as to be a virtual time-capsule of the early 70s for fans of the era. Above all, it's amusing! - it's really funny to watch Lou back in the studio poring over the master tapes, offering up anecdote after anecdote. As for the scenes with the original Walk on the Wild Side characters, Little Joe and Holly, they are hilarious! The dvd comes with added bonus interviews so it's worth the extra couple of pounds.

Interesting insight into Lou Reed's breakthrough album
'Transformer' was the album that broke Lou Reed into the premier league as an artist. Blessed with production and arrangement assistance from David Bowie and his guitarist / MD Mick Ronson (an incredibly talented but modest and self-effacing individual), 'Transformer' was very much an album of its moment, that hasn't, to me, worn all that well in comparison to his work with the Velvets. However, this DVD, like most of the 'Classic Albums' documentaries that I've seen, does much to illuminate and reveal the creative, recording and personal circumstances of the artist in question. When that artist is Lou Reed, it becomes something so much more. In the interview footage, Reed comes across as a slightly guarded, cynical individual (so what else is new?!), but nonetheless proud of the achievements with 'Transformer', and also quite appreciative of the contributions of Bowie and Ronson (which he hasn't always been in interviews). Reed sounds, from the Ronson interview footage, and the interview contributions from the amusing session bassist Herbie Flowers, to have been in pretty poor shape at the time - couldn't be bothered to tune up his guitar, etc, but the songs took shape in the studio, and in the process, a flawed classic was made. Engineer Ken Scott also takes apart the layering process on the album - fascinating stuff - and the contributions from journalist / musican Lenny Kaye and Rolling Stone editor David Fricke do much to help place the Lou Reed of 'Transformer' into the broader music scene of the time. If there's one criticism I have of this DVD, it is the interviews with Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics - I always thought he was an extremely overrated and marginally talented musician who got (very) lucky, and his opinions and thoughts are of no interest to me (or likely anyone else, for that matter), and, apart from The Eurythmics, just about everything else he touched was awful (Alisha's Attic, anybody?). That minor gripe aside (and as a Velvets fan, I would have appreciated more vintage footage of the band - however, in fairness to the producers, the doc is about solo Lou Reed), this is a solid and very worthwhile purchase.