Work Archives - Medialoper

Album: Dirty Work
Year: 1986

. . .

Written and recorded smack dab in the middle of their nadir, Dirty Work has often been slagged as one of their worst albums, but I like it more than any of their records between Tattoo You and A Bigger Bang.

It’s true that Mick Jagger had snuck a solo deal on top of the Stones’ contract with their new distributor, CBS, and it’s true that Mick immediately went out and cut his solo debut, She’s The Boss, dreaming of glory outside of the context of the band that had helped define him. The apotheosis of all of this was probably Live Aid, when Mick performed as a solo artist and with Tina Turner and Keith and Ronnie backed up a fucked-up Bob Dylan.

Album: Songs For Drella
Year: 1990

Of course the reason that Lou Reed & John Cale recorded Songs For Drella as a duo instead of with a full band is that they knew that a full band would instantly invite comparisons to their work with the Velvet Underground, and they wanted to make sure that the focus was on the stories they were telling about their mentor, the late Andy Warhol.

Which made sense, because for rabid Velvets fans such as myself, just the prospect of hearing the interplay of Cale’s keyboards and Reed’s guitar for the first time since the late 1960s was far more important than anything they had to say about Warhol, who I always perceived as important to their career, but not so much to their music.

Work

Certain Songs #2097: The Rolling Stones – “One Hit (To The Body)”

Certain Songs #984: Lou Reed / John Cale – “Work”