Magic and Loss | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | January 14, 1992 | |||
Recorded | April 1–27, 1991 | |||
Studio | The Magic Shop, New York City | |||
Genre | Rock | |||
Length | 58:27 | |||
Label | Sire | |||
Producer | Lou Reed, Mike Rathke | |||
Lou Reed chronology | ||||
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Magic and Loss is the sixteenth solo studio album by American rock musician Lou Reed, released on January 14, 1992, by Sire Records. A concept album, it was Reed's highest-charting album on the UK Albums Chart, peaking at No. 6. [1]
It's my dream album, because everything finally came together to where the album is finally fully realized. I got it to do what I wanted it to do, commercial thoughts never entered into it, so I'm just stunned.
Magic and Loss was originally intended to be primarily about themes of magic after hearing stories about magicians in Mexico. However, when tragedy struck during the writing process, Reed expanded the album's focus to themes of loss and death as well. [3] Inspired in part by the illnesses and eventual deaths of two close friends, Magic and Loss was written for songwriter Doc Pomus, who had given Reed his start in the music business some 25 years earlier, [4] and a woman Reed has identified as "Rita", popularly assumed to be Rotten Rita, who along with Reed was a familiar figure at Andy Warhol's studio, the Factory, in the mid-to-late '60s. [5] Photographs of Pomus and a woman's face can be seen at the center of the lyric booklet included with the CD release. [6]
Jazz singer Little Jimmy Scott performs backing vocals on track 3, "Power and Glory". Reed's live performance of the album filmed on March 18, 1992, at Pinewood Studios in London, England, was released on VHS and LaserDisc. [7]
The single "What's Good"/"The Thesis", released in March, was Reed's second number-one hit (after "Dirty Blvd.") on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, [8] occupying the top spot for 3 weeks. The 12" version of the release contained Reed's reading of "Harry's Circumcision" and "A Dream". A longer version of "What's Good" was previously released on the 1991 soundtrack album to the Wim Wenders film Until the End of the World . [9]
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [10] |
Chicago Tribune | [11] |
Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [12] |
Entertainment Weekly | B− [13] |
NME | 10/10 [14] |
Orlando Sentinel | [15] |
Q | [16] |
Rolling Stone | [17] |
The Rolling Stone Album Guide | [18] |
Select | 5/5 [19] |
Magic and Loss was voted the 16th best album of the year in The Village Voice 's annual Pazz & Jop critics poll for 1992. Robert Christgau, the poll's creator, disapproved of the voters' support of an album he felt was a "failed concept" marred by Reed's uninteresting views on death. [20] In a positive review, Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune said that the album shows "a great rocker at the peak of his powers: Striking tunes, gripping lyrics, honest emotion stripped of melodrama." [11]
All tracks written by Lou Reed, except where noted.
Side one
Side two
Credits are adapted from the Magic and Loss liner notes. [21]
Musicians
Artwork
Chart (1992) | Peak position |
---|---|
Australian Albums (ARIA) [22] | 56 |
Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria) [23] | 9 |
Dutch Albums (Album Top 100) [24] | 11 |
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100) [25] | 17 |
New Zealand Albums (RMNZ) [26] | 20 |
Norwegian Albums (VG-lista) [27] | 10 |
Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan) [28] | 9 |
Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade) [29] | 10 |
UK Albums (OCC) [30] | 6 |
US Billboard 200 [31] | 80 |
Jerome Solon Felder, known professionally as Doc Pomus, was an American blues singer and songwriter. He is best known as the co-writer of many rock and roll hits. Pomus was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a non-performer in 1992, the Songwriters Hall of Fame (1992), and the Blues Hall of Fame (2012).
The Ghost of Tom Joad is the eleventh studio album, and the second acoustic album, by American recording artist Bruce Springsteen, released on November 21, 1995, by Columbia Records. It reached the top ten in two countries, and the top twenty in five more, including No. 11 in the United States, his first studio album to fail to reach the top ten in the US in over two decades. It won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album.
The Raven is the nineteenth solo studio album by American rock musician Lou Reed, released on January 28, 2003 by Sire Records. It is a concept album, recounting the short stories and poems of Edgar Allan Poe through word and song, and was based on his 2000 opera co-written with Robert Wilson, POEtry.
Harvest Moon is the 19th studio album by Canadian musician Neil Young, released on November 2, 1992. Many of its backing musicians also appeared on Young's 1972 album Harvest.
A Kind of Magic is the twelfth studio album by the British rock band Queen, released on 2 June 1986 by EMI Records in the UK and by Capitol Records in the US. It is based on the soundtrack to the film Highlander, directed by Russell Mulcahy.
Freeze-Frame is the tenth studio album by American rock band the J. Geils Band, and the last one to feature original vocalist Peter Wolf. The album was released on October 26, 1981, by EMI Records. It reached number one on the United States Billboard 200 album chart in February 1982, and remained at the top for four weeks. The album featured the hit singles "Centerfold" and "Freeze Frame". "Angel in Blue" also reached the US Top 40.
Live at Wembley '86 is a double live album by the British rock band Queen. It was recorded live on Saturday 12 July 1986 during The Magic Tour at Wembley Stadium in London, England. The album was released on 26 May 1992, with a companion DVD released in June 2003.
Street Hassle is the eighth solo studio album by American musician Lou Reed, released in February 1978 by Arista Records. Richard Robinson and Reed produced the album. It is the first commercially released pop album to employ binaural recording technology. Street Hassle combines live concert tapes and studio recordings.
New York is the fifteenth solo studio album by American musician Lou Reed, released in January 1989 by Sire Records.
Broken Arrow is the 22nd studio album by Canadian / American musician Neil Young, and his tenth with Crazy Horse. The first three songs are in the form of long, structured jams. The final track is a live version of a Jimmy Reed song that was recorded on an audience microphone at a small "secret" gig in California, giving it a bootleg feel.
The Blue Mask is the eleventh solo studio album by American rock musician Lou Reed, released on February 23, 1982 by RCA Records. Reed had returned to the label after having left Arista Records. The album was released around Reed's 40th birthday, and covers topics of marriage and settling down, alongside themes of violence, paranoia, and alcoholism.
Blaze of Glory is the debut solo studio album by Jon Bon Jovi, the frontman of Bon Jovi. The album was released on August 7, 1990, through Mercury Records. It includes songs from and inspired by the movie Young Guns II. Emilio Estevez originally requested Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive" as the theme song for his upcoming Billy the Kid sequel, but Jon Bon Jovi ended up composing an all-new theme song for the film's soundtrack instead.
The Bells is the ninth solo studio album by American rock musician Lou Reed, released in April 1979 by Arista Records. It is recorded in binaural sound at Delta Studios in Wilster, West Germany. Production was handled by Reed with Michael Fonfara serving as executive producer. Three out of nine songs on the album are the product of a short-lived writing partnership between Reed and Nils Lofgren. More of the team's work appeared on Nils' solo studio album Nils, released the same year. Lofgren released his version of "Stupid Man" as "Driftin' Man" on Break Away Angel (2001). Lofgren resurrected five songs he wrote with Reed in the late 70s on Blue with Lou (2019).
Packed! is the fifth album by rock group The Pretenders, released in 1990.
Songs for Drella is a 1990 album by Lou Reed and John Cale, both formerly of the Velvet Underground; it is a song cycle about Andy Warhol, their mentor, who had died following routine surgery in 1987. Drella was a nickname for Warhol coined by Warhol superstar Ondine, a contraction of Dracula and Cinderella, used by Warhol's crowd but never liked by Warhol himself. The song cycle focuses on Warhol's interpersonal relations and experiences, with songs falling roughly into three categories: Warhol's first-person perspective, third-person narratives chronicling events and affairs, and first-person commentaries on Warhol by Reed and Cale themselves. The songs, in general, address events in their chronological order.
Perfect Night: Live in London is a live album by American musician Lou Reed recorded during the Meltdown '97 festival. It includes a version of the Velvet Underground's "I'll Be Your Mirror", originally sung by Nico. The album includes two songs, "Talking Book" and "Into the Divine" from the 1996 play Time Rocker Reed's collaboration with Robert Wilson, and Darryl Pinckney (text). The cover photograph was taken by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. In Australia, the 2-CD tour edition of Reed's 2000 album Ecstasy included Perfect Night as the second disc.
The Magic of Boney M. is a greatest hits album of recordings by Boney M. released by Sony BMG in October 2006.
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Time is the twenty-eighth studio album by Rod Stewart, it was released on 3 May 2013 in the UK, on 7 May in the US and Canada, and on 8 May in Japan under the title "Time: Toki no Tabibito" (タイム~時の旅人~). The album entered the top 10 in the US and entered the UK Albums Chart at No. 1, setting a new British record for the longest gap between chart-topping albums by an artist, as his last studio album to reach the top spot was A Night on the Town in 1976. The album was certified platinum in the UK on 16 August 2013 and double-platinum on 29 December 2017. Overall, the album was the No. 7 best-selling album of 2013 in the UK. In the United States, the album has sold 141,000 copies as of September 2015.
Somewhere Under Wonderland is the seventh studio album by American rock band Counting Crows, released on September 2, 2014 in the United States through Capitol Records, and on September 15, 2014 in the UK, through Virgin EMI. It is available on CD, vinyl and as a digital download. The album is the band's first album of original material in six years since 2008's Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings.
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