For more than three weeks I've struggled dutifully with this record. As with all of Lou Reed's music I was looking forward to it, but the longer it took me to reach an accommodation with Growing Up In Public the more disturbed and distracted I became. A dilemma: On the one horn Lou has only rarely wasted his time (or mine) over the last 15 years. On the other horn, taking Lou too seriously can lead to the dreaded [Lester] Bangs Syndrome, which turns normally clear headed critics desperately grim and feverishly apocalyptic, causing them to grapple to the finish with Lou in a two out of three fall steel cage feature….

However, as much of the writing in our critical journals regularly indicates, one can do a lot worse than Bangs Syndrome, especially since Lou Reed is the smartest person regularly recording rock 'n' roll. Taking him as...