Peter Kafka

Recent Posts by Peter Kafka

Here’s the Music Lou Reed Liked

PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA/AFP/Getty Images

Lou Reed was a capital-R Rock Star, but he was also very much a normal-sized human. If you lived in New York in the last couple decades, there was a good chance you’d bump into him doing something very normal, just like regular people do. Once I went to get sushi at an unremarkable place on 13th Street, and there he was, picking at something with Laurie Anderson.

So there’s my Lou Reed story.*

Anyway, just like millions of other people, Lou Reed had a Spotify account. Because he is also a capital-R Rock Star, Spotify occasionally encouraged its users to follow his activity on the streaming music service. So, if you did, you could see what he was listening to.

Or, at least, what whoever was using Lou Reed’s Spotify account was listening to. On the Internet, no one knows if your dog is controlling your playlist.

With that caveat in mind, here, via the Daily Dot, is what Lou Reed was listening to — and liking — in the past year or so. Reed also had other curated playlists, but this one is worth noting because so much of it will be familiar to the average music fan. Turns out Lou Reed listened to Paul Simon, David Bowie and … Lou Reed. Just like a regular human.

And here’s a tremendous Lou Reed performance from 1974. RIP.

* I do have a much better Alec Baldwin story. It is not risque, but it is sort of unbelievable. Yet there are many witnesses.

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