Growing Up In Public
	Produced by Lou Reed and Michael Fonfara
	Released on April 1980
	US CHART POSITION #158
	Find it at GEMM
AL 9522 cover [high resolution photo]

A cartoonish collection of songs that kinda careen into each other, regarded by some as one of Reed’s weaker entries, but if the laconic genius of “Don’t Talk To Me About Work” won you over then this’ll grow on you too. I owned Growing Up on a cassette originally and played it until I couldn’t plays it no more (he wrote in his best Popeye impression, who incidentally I always thought was gay. Do the math: flat-chested girlfriend named, ahem, olive oyl, and then there’s that Bluto dynamic where desire and anger converged. Guess it’s one of those white whale things; sometimes a white whale named Moby Dick is just that.) For Lou’s longstanding late-70s bandmates (Michael Fonfara, Michael Suchorsky, Stuart Heinrich), this is a last ride and they go into the sunset with a boozy brilliance that would do any bar proud. As I mentioned earlier, the songs are really nothing special: “Keep Away,” “Growing Up In Public,” “My Old Man,” “How Do You Speak To An Angel.” But the band punches up the best parts, underscoring Lou’s lazy delivery on songs like “Smiles” and “So Alone.” Some of it’s just too lazy to work: a rewrite of “Take Me To The River” cast as “Teach The Gifted Children,” for example, which serves as a kind of call to action after all these seemingly autobiographical songs about a troubled childhood. If the subject matter is dark most of the time, light streaks of love break through the clouds. “Think It Over” in particular is a pretty track, and “Love Is Here To Stay” is cute too. As usual, I tend to be overly enamored of works I’ve owned on cassette simply because of the familiarity bred by unconsciously popping it into my car radio every Nth mile. However, I own Mistrial on cassette too, and Growing Up In Public is clearly its superior. In fact, I like this more than Legendary Hearts, so feel free to lump this into the middle-pack of Lou Reed records that have a comedic/tragic charm but fall shy of serious works of art.

AL 9522 back cover	AL 9522 lyric sleeve

TRACK LISTING

1. HOW DO YOU SPEAK TO AN ANGEL    4:08
2. MY OLD MAN    3:15
3. KEEP AWAY    3:31
4. GROWING UP IN PUBLIC    3:00
5. STANDING ON CEREMONY    3:32
6. SO ALONE    4:05
7. LOVE IS HERE TO STAY    3:10
8. THE POWER OF POSITIVE DRINKING    2:13
9. SMILES    2:44
10. THINK IT OVER    3:25
11. TEACH THE GIFTED CHILDREN    3:20
    
    All songs written by Lou Reed and Michael Fonfara

CREDITS

LOU REED -- vocals, guitars, mixing
ELLARD BOLES -- bass, background vocals
MICHAEL FONFARA -- keyboards, guitars, mixing
CHUCK HAMMER -- guitars
STUART HEINRICH -- guitars, background vocals
MICHAEL SUCHORSKY -- drums
Corky Stasiak -- engineer, mixing
Mick Rock -- photos
Howard Fritzson -- design

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