The Bells

In 1979, Lou Reed could've put out an album's worth of three-chord antisocial screeds to cash in on the punk craze he'd helped inspire. Instead, he released The Bells, an artistically adventuresome work defying easy categorization. Reed's longtime obsession with decadence is supplanted here by more subtle reflections on love, maturity, and family relations. The music touches on everything from Springsteen-like East Coast rock to experimental jazz, displaying little similarity to Lou's Velvet Underground work. True, longtime Reed devotees will recognize the sneer and fury heard in "With You" and "Looking for Love." But those hoping for fresh tales of drugs and depravity will instead find the likes of "Stupid Man" and "All Through the Night," songs betraying an interest in the lives of more ordinary humans. "City Lights" (a wistful invocation of Charlie Chaplin) shows off Lou's underexposed sweet side. Steamy jazz-rock pieces ("Disco Mystic") and avant-garde explorations (the title tune) further confound the listener's expectations.