The Blue Mask

For other uses, see The Blue Mask (disambiguation).
The Blue Mask
Studio album by Lou Reed
Released February 23, 1982[1]
Recorded October 1981 at RCA Studios, New York City
Genre Rock
Length 40:30
Label RCA Records
Producer Lou Reed, Sean Fullan
Lou Reed chronology
Rock and Roll Diary: 1967-1980
(1980)		 The Blue Mask
(1982)		 Legendary Hearts
(1983)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic [2]
Chicago Tribune[3]
Robert Christgau(A) [4]
Rolling Stone[5]

The Blue Mask is the eleventh studio album by singer-songwriter Lou Reed. It was the first album released after Reed left Arista Records and returned to RCA Records. It returns to the stripped-down sound of his previous group, the Velvet Underground, with only guitars, bass and drums. It also follows the Velvet Underground stylistically by counterpointing and transposing jarring feedback-driven rock with tough and tender ballads, melodic distortion of a magnitude not heard since the "Sister Ray" days. The album was released near Reed's 40th birthday, and covers topics of marriage and settling down.[1]

Production and recording

Reed and Robert Quine's guitars were mixed separately in the right and left stereo channels respectively. To differentiate his guitar's sound from Reed's, Quine used D tuning, playing each song as if it was one major second lower. For example, "Heavenly Arms" is in G major, so Quine used fingerings for A major to play the song.

Quine, who years earlier followed the Velvet Underground across the country and taped several of their early shows (they were later released as Bootleg Series Volume 1: The Quine Tapes), was a perfect complement to Reed. Quine also toured in support of the album and can be seen on the recorded The Bottom Line show titled A Night with Lou Reed. The album contains no instrumental overdubs with the exception of Reed's guitar on "My House", but all vocals were overdubbed with the exception of "The Heroine".

Longtime Reed collaborator Fernando Saunders plays the bass and adds backing vocals (most noticeably, a falsetto refrain in the outro to "Heavenly Arms") to this album and can also be seen in A Night with Lou Reed. In 2000, a remastered version of The Blue Mask was released. Quine and Reed share the distinction of being named to Rolling Stone's Top 100 Guitarists of All-Time List. The drummer for the album was the studio ace Doane Perry who later joined Jethro Tull.

The album cover was designed by Reed's then wife, Sylvia, and features a blue version of a photograph by Mick Rock from the cover art of 1972's Transformer.

Track listing

All songs written by Lou Reed.

Side one
  1. "My House" - 5:25
  2. "Women" - 4:57
  3. "Underneath the Bottle" - 2:33
  4. "The Gun" - 3:41
  5. "The Blue Mask" - 5:06
Side two
  1. "Average Guy" - 3:12
  2. "The Heroine" - 3:06
  3. "Waves of Fear" - 4:11
  4. "The Day John Kennedy Died" - 4:08
  5. "Heavenly Arms" - 4:47

Personnel

Sean Fullan - Recording Engineer, Co-Producer

References

  1. 1 2 Sheffield, Rob (1982-02-24). "Happy 30th Birthday to 'The Blue Mask,' Lou Reed's Solo Masterpiece | Rob Sheffield". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2013-08-16.
  2. ↑ Deming, Mark. The Blue Mask at AllMusic
  3. ↑ Kot, Greg (January 12, 1992). "Lou Reed's Recordings: 25 Years of Path-breaking Music". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved July 29, 2013.
  4. ↑ Robert Christgau review
  5. ↑ Carson, Tom (April 15, 1982). "Lou Reed: The Blue Mask : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone". web.archive.org. Archived from the original on February 18, 2009. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
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