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The essential biography of one of music's most influential icons: Lou Reed As lead singer and songwriter for the Velvet Underground and a renowned solo artist, Lou Reed invented alternative rock. His music, at once a source of transcendent beauty and coruscating noise, violated all definitions of genre while speaking to millions of fans, inspiring succeeding generations of musicians, and forever changing the way we think of the enshrined verities of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. Throughout his five-decade career, Reed embodied artistic fearlessness and embraced the glamour, paranoia, and jagged energy of his times. While creating hit songs and crafting boldly experimental albums, he inhabited a larger-than-life persona that has made him an enduring symbol of individual and aesthetic freedom. With such masterpieces as "Sweet Jane" and "Walk on the Wild Side," Reed exerted an influence on popular music rivaled only by the likes of Bob Dylan and the Beatles. He is recognized to this day as one of the most important musicians of the twentieth century. Now, just a few years after Reed's death, comes the thrilling, provocative story of his complex life. An acclaimed Rolling Stone writer, Anthony DeCurtis interviewed Reed extensively and knew him well. With unparalleled access to dozens of Reed's friends, family, and collaborators, DeCurtis brings this groundbreaking artist's story compellingly alive and enhances our understanding of his indelible music. We travel deep into Reed's defiantly subterranean world, enter the studio as the Velvet Underground record their signature work, and revel in Reed's relationships with such legendary figures as Andy Warhol and David Bowie. Insightful, revelatory, and intimate, Lou Reed is a gripping tribute to a quintessential American icon.