The Blue Mask

The Blue Mask
Studio album by Lou Reed
Released February 23, 1982 (1982-02-23)[1]
Recorded October 1981
Studio 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)Rock and Roll Diary: 1967-19801980		 The Blue Mask
(1982)		 Legendary Hearts
(1983)Legendary Hearts1983
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[2]
Chicago Tribune[3]
Christgau's Record GuideA[4]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music[5]
Rolling Stone[6]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[7]
Spin[8]
Spin Alternative Record Guide9/10[9]

The Blue Mask is the eleventh solo studio album by singer-songwriter Lou Reed. It was the first album released after Reed left Arista Records and returned to RCA Records. The album was released near Reed's 40th birthday, and covers topics of marriage and settling down,[1] alongside themes of violence, paranoia, and alcoholism.

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

Technical
  • 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 – Lou Reed". AllMusic. Retrieved July 29, 2013.
  3. ↑ Kot, Greg (January 12, 1992). "Lou Reed's Recordings: 25 Years Of Path-breaking Music". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved July 29, 2013.
  4. ↑ Christgau, Robert (1990). "Lou Reed: The Blue Mask". Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s. Pantheon Books. ISBN 0-679-73015-X. Retrieved July 29, 2013.
  5. ↑ Larkin, Colin (2011). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (5th concise ed.). Omnibus Press. ISBN 0-85712-595-8.
  6. ↑ Carson, Tom (April 15, 1982). "Lou Reed: The Blue Mask". Rolling Stone. New York. Archived from the original on February 18, 2009. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
  7. ↑ Hull, Tom (2004). "Lou Reed". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian. The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). Simon & Schuster. pp. 684–85. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
  8. ↑ Marchese, David (November 2009). "Discography: Lou Reed". Spin. New York. 24 (11): 67. Retrieved January 13, 2017.
  9. ↑ Weisbard, Eric; Marks, Craig, eds. (1995). Spin Alternative Record Guide. Vintage Books. ISBN 0-679-75574-8.
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