When Lou Reed left the Velvet Underground in 1970, it seemed rock and roll's loss was accountancy's gain - he found employment with his dad's accountancy firm. What's more the minute sales of his debut solo album were hardly likely to trouble balance sheets at his record company.
It no doubt came as a relief to Lou when David Bowie, then at the peak of his Ziggy success, offered to produce a new album. Transformer was aptly named - it would change Lou Reed from shadowy cult figure to (albeit unusual) pop star, and also become possibly the best album ever inspired by New York, even though it wasn't recorded there.
In July 1972, Reed moved to London and rented a house in Wimbledon, an area not renowned for its abundance of low life cross dressers and drug users. Recording commenced at Trident Studios, overseen by Bowie and his trusty guitar sidekick Mick Ronson, who also lent his trademark crunch to several of the tracks. Also involved where Beatles associate Klaus Voorman and ace session man Herbie Flowers, whose double tracked bass line on Walk on the Wild Side practically made the song, even if credit was never fully given for his contribution beyond the standard session fee.
Lyrically, Reed's obsession with the seedier side of New York street life can be placed in a tradition exemplified by novels such as Hubert Selby's Last Exit to Brooklyn. Reed saw his work as a celebration of the dispossessed, saying "I always thought it would be kinda fun to introduce people to characters they maybe hadn't met before, or wanted to meet." By comparison, Bowie's flirtation with gay subculture smacked of affectation when placed against Reed's harshly realistic portrayals.
Transformer eventually hit number 13 in the UK charts, helped considerably by the success of …Wild Side, a massive hit on both sides of the Atlantic after its release as a single. It brought Reed the wider audience that had been denied the Velvets, and also contained many of his most enduring songs, such as Perfect Day and Satellite of Love. The former took on new life in the 90s in a BBC ad campaign, hardly suiting its genesis as a thinly veiled ode to heroin which had informed its appearance in the Trainspotting soundtrack.
Reed would return to the Big Apple for inspiration again and again - most notably on 1989's New York, which saw him using the ills of the city to mount a withering attack on contemporary American society - but Transformer remains his most popular album. Informed by the mainstream sensibilities of Bowie and Ronson, it hit the top 30 on both sides of the Atlantic and is the Lou Reed album every home should have.
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