Uncut's latest Ultimate Music Guide is a 148-page tribute to the genius of Lou Reed. As with all of our Ultimate Music Guides, we've raided the archives of NME and Melody Maker to uncover a rich collection of old Lou Reed interviews: some of them legendary encounters, restored to their original and unexpurgated lengths; others just as debauched and gripping, but unseen for decades.
If you were a fan, you probably watched with horror, incredulity and fretful concern at the things Lou Reed put himself through in the '70s, especially after the critical and commercial rejection of Berlin hardened an already cynical disposition into an unsparing bitterness and what seemed like a headlong pursuit of self-obliteration. Even more than Keith Richards at the time, Lou seemed the rock star most likely to become a casualty of his addictions.