X is the Y of Z

“X is the Y of Z” is a snowclone–an adaptable, Mad Libs-like idiom like “May I compare thee to an X?”, “X is the new Y,” and “I for one welcome our new X overlords.” This snowclone touches on every subject imaginable, including music. So without further adieu, today’s topic is…

Lou Reed

Nobody epitomizes coolness, heroin, minimalistic singing, code-orange weirdness, or ginormous rock’n’roll influence more than Mr. Lou Reed.

As his journalistic adversary/dance partner Lester Bangs wrote, “…Lou Reed is a completely depraved pervert and pathetic death dwarf and everything else you want to think he is. On top of that he’s a liar, a wasted talent, an artist continually in flux, and a huckster selling pounds of his own flesh. A panderer living off the dumbbell nihilism of a seventies generation that doesn’t have the energy to commit suicide. Lou Reed is the guy that gave dignity and poetry and rock ‘n’ roll to smack, speed, homosexuality, sadomasochism, murder, misogyny, stumblebum passivity, and suicide, and then proceeded to belie all his achievements and return to the mire by turning the whole thing into a monumental bad joke with himself as the woozily insistent Henny Youngman in the center ring, mumbling punch lines that kept losing their punch.”

And Bangs was a fan. While few if any can write at the level of Bangs, that doesn’t stop ordinary civilians from invoking Reed’s name, especially when a President, monkey, or taco shop is particularly Lou Reed-istic.

“OK, now that I’ve got the music thing doped out, here he is, the Lou Reed of the ukulele, Carmaig De Forest. I love this song.”

((June 9, 2008, Poetry is for Assholes)

“I was moved to post this by a recent article on another MIT professor (Walter Lewin) whose physics-related act is achieving a certain amount of popular success, also on OpenCourseWare. Now I’m glad to see the genre succeed no matter who the frontman happens to be, but someone has to point out that Dr. Strang was there first and was doing it before it was cool. He is the Lou Reed of online math and science lecturing, or the DJ Kool Herc if you prefer.”

(Dec. 22, 2007, Unicorns of the Hydrocalypse)

“He is like the Lou Reed of cooking. Cool, confident, funny and not afraid to tell you exactly what’s on his mind.”

(Nov. 1, 2007, my musings…)

“Bill Gates is the Lou Reed of operating systems, and, like Lou Reed, an unheralded godfather of white rap.”

(Oct. 31, 2007, Flowbear)

“el zarape is the lou reed of taco shops.”

(Oct. 31, 2007, DiscoverSD.com)

“Here’s an old kiddie LP (from 1958 perhaps) featuring the vocal stylings of Captain Kangaroo on 17 happy little tunes including ‘The Bear Went Over the Mountain’, ‘Row Row Row Your Boat’, ‘Button Up Your Overcoat’ and, ‘Toyland’. The good Captain was the Lou Reed of kiddie records – his essentially spoken vocals are, however, augmented by a number of supporting singers who do actually, umm, sing.”

(Jan. 28, 2006, Rob Fear, Senses Working Overtime)

“I’ve always thought of George W. Bush as the Lou Reed of Presidents. Well, maybe that isn’t quite true, though it would be if you substituted ‘never’ for ‘always.’ But it is true that when I heard about President Bush’s latest Supreme Court nominee, Lou Reed is who I thought of.”

(Oct. 18, 2005, Frederic D. Schwarz, American Heritage Blog)

“Professor Syrett waited till the last of my classmates had left and shut the door.  He sat down next to me in the circle of chairs in his office.  There was a certain intensity about Professor Syrett.  He had a vicious way of lecturing where he paced the stage with a materafuctual delivery.  There was something dangerously ‘American’ about him – kinda like Lou Reed.  Yeah – he was the Lou Reed of History Professors.  Not bad for a bespectacled man who hair was rapidly graying.”

(July 19, 2005, Livejournal)

“But other pitches were not as well-crafted. For instance, there was this guy who smiled weakly and asked us, with a halfhearted shrug, ‘Monkey dance?’ Our eyes followed the leash in his hand, which led to the neck of a monkey. The most jaded, world-weary monkey I’ve ever seen. The Lou Reed of monkeys. He looked like he was about to sit down, pull out his works, and shoot a big syringe full of heroin into his paw. Needless to say, we declined the monkey dance—which I’m guessing would have been some sort of sad, simian death-jig.”

(Sept. 30, 2004, Seth Stevenson, Slate)

Mark Peters is a language columnist and humorist who writes for Good, Visual Thesaurus and other mags, while maintaining too many blogs, including Wordlustitude, The Rosa Parks of Blogs, and The Pancake Proverbs.

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