LOU REED

The Blue Mask

(RCA)

“Things go from bad to weird,” Lou Reed observes in “Underneath the Bottle,” thus astutely summing up his latest career turn, The Blue Mask. Old Lou-watchers insist that this new album is his so-long-Clivehello-greatness move, and since it’s a vast improvement over Growing Up In Public, no wonder they’re relieved. Lou seems to take it seriously, too, although he’s got a lot on his mind what with his continuing marriage to Sylvia (“the prettiest girl in the world,” remember?) and simultaneously living up to and living down a decade of interim personas, not to mention the Velvet Underground. Far as 1 can tell, The Blue Mask is Reed’s most wholehearted effort to play it straight—in more ways than one— since anyone cared. But that just makes you wonder: does he have any idea what he’s saying? Or what he wants to say?