| Magic and Loss | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | January 14, 1992 | |||
| Recorded | April 1–27, 1991 | |||
| Studio | Magic Shop, New York City | |||
| Genre | Rock | |||
| Length | 58:27 | |||
| Label | Sire | |||
| Producer | Lou Reed, Mike Rathke | |||
| Lou Reed chronology | ||||
| ||||
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).
Lucky Town is the tenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen. The album was released on March 31, 1992, the same day as Springsteen's ninth studio album Human Touch. Lucky Town peaked at number three on the Billboard 200, with lead single "Better Days" peaking at number one on the US Mainstream Rock and number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. Lucky Town has since been certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), for over one million copies sold in the US.
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.
Cuts Like a Knife is the third studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Bryan Adams. Released on 18 January 1983 by A&M Records, the album was a huge commercial success in the United States and Canada. Three singles were released worldwide from the album: "Straight from the Heart", the title track and "This Time"; the three were responsible for launching Adams into mainstream popularity.
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.
Welcome to the Neighbourhood is the seventh studio album by American rock singer Meat Loaf, released in 1995 as the follow-up to his successful comeback album Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell. It went platinum in the United States and United Kingdom.
Coney Island Baby is the sixth solo studio album by American rock musician Lou Reed, released in January 1976 by RCA Records.
New York is the fifteenth solo studio album by American musician Lou Reed, released in January 1989 by Sire Records.
On the Night is the second live album by the British rock band Dire Straits, released on 10 May 1993 by Vertigo Records internationally, and by Warner Bros. Records in the United States. The album features many of the band's later hits, including the singles "Walk of Life" and "Money for Nothing". The cover art of the album features dishes of the Very Large Array in central New Mexico.
The Blue Mask is the eleventh solo studio album by American rock musician Lou Reed, released in February 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 approached Bon Jovi to ask him for permission to include the song "Wanted Dead or Alive" on the soundtrack.
Packed! is the fifth studio album by rock group Pretenders, released in 1990.
Songs for Drella is a 1990 studio 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.
We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions is the fourteenth studio album by Bruce Springsteen. Released in 2006, it peaked at number three on the Billboard 200 and won the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album at the 49th Grammy Awards.
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.
Magic is the fifteenth studio album by the American singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen, released by Columbia Records on LP on September 25, 2007, and on CD on October 2. It was his first with the E Street Band since The Rising in 2002, and topped the charts in six countries, including the US and UK, going triple platinum in Ireland. Two songs from the album – "Radio Nowhere" and "Girls in Their Summer Clothes" – won a total of three Grammys, making Magic the second of only two Springsteen albums with three wins, after The Rising. It ranked No. 2 on Rolling Stone's list of the Top 50 Albums of 2007.
And I'll Scratch Yours is a compilation album developed by the English rock musician Peter Gabriel. Initially slated for release in 2010, the album was released on 24 September 2013. The original concept was that And I'll Scratch Yours would serve as a companion piece to Gabriel's 2010 covers album Scratch My Back. The idea was to give the artists whose songs Gabriel covered on Scratch My Back a medium to reciprocate – And I'll Scratch Yours would feature those artists covering Gabriel's songs. Three artists, David Bowie, Neil Young and Radiohead, declined to record covers of Gabriel's material, so Brian Eno, Joseph Arthur and Feist contributed covers to the album instead.
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~). In May 2013, Stewart released Time, a rock album of his own original material. It marked a return to songwriting after what Stewart termed "a dark period of twenty years"; he said that writing his autobiography gave him the impetus to write music again. 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.
Magic! is a Canadian reggae fusion band from Toronto. Based in Los Angeles, the band comprises lead vocalist, guitarist/producer Nasri Atweh, guitarist/keyboardist Mark "Pelli" Pellizzer, and bassist Ben Spivak. Active since 2012, the band is signed with Latium, Sony, and RCA Records, releasing their debut studio album Don't Kill the Magic in 2014, their second studio album Primary Colours in 2016, and their third studio album Expectations in 2018. They are best known for their hit single "Rude", which charted at No. 1 in several countries worldwide, including the US and UK.
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