Did Lou Reed Die For Lady Gaga’s Sin?

Lou Reed

When Iman sent me this link ‘Did Lady Gaga Kill Lou Reed?’, I thought, before reading anything, oh great another crazy conspiracy theory to chew on! The website Hard Dawn looks like it is run by right-wing conservative religious nuts: you’ll find some stuff about dinosaurs in the bible, many attacks on ‘radical atheism’ and a lot of articles about the ‘homosexual agenda’ or the ‘Marijuana danger’… but wait a minute, Hard Dawn has to be a satirist website mocking the far right wing, so I don’t care if this story about Lou Reed and Lady Gaga has not even an ounce of truth, it’s entertaining.

So what is this about? The author, Henricus Institor, and the name in itself is a joke – pretends that, Lady Gaga wanted to take a new direction after ‘Born this Way’, and for this, she wanted the help of the master himself, Lou Reed. She wanted her new album, ‘Artpop’, to be an avant-garde masterpiece à la Warhol, and Gaga wanted to prove to the world she could rise to the level. There are numerous articles making the connection between Gaga’s ambitions and Warhol although she has always appear like a parody to me.

At that time, you saw Lady Gaga hanging out with post-pop art movement Jeff Koons and performance artist Marina Abramovic (true, I remember about this funny episode, when pompous Marina taught Gaga how to drink water or some bullshit like this). According to Hard Dawn, Lou Reed, reluctant at first, was offered a $1.2 million consultancy fee, and he ‘grew receptive to the idea’, meaning you can buy Lou Reed after all, or can you?

‘Artpop’ was conceived in direct connection with the Velvet Underground, Gaga’s ‘Dope’ was the VU’s ‘Heroin’, ‘G.U.Y.’ was ‘Walk on the Wild Side’… ‘MANICURE’ was ‘I’ll be your Mirror’… oh poor Nico!… ‘Applause’ with the opening verse ‘I stand here waiting for you to bang the gong’, is Reed’s ‘I’m Waiting for the Man’, although they are not exactly waiting for the same thing… So, demos were sent to Reed in November 2012, and Reed didn’t answer, but when he did, he replied ‘I have no interest in any further involvement.’

But things got nasty, ‘Artpop’’s centerpiece, ‘Venus’ (inspired byThe Velvet Underground’s ‘Venus in Furs’?) outraged Lou Reed, who announced he ‘would publicly denounce ‘Artpop’ and would also pursue legal action if the album was released with songs like ‘Venus’ and ‘Dope’ intact.’ Gaga was devastated of course, repeating to herself the word pronounced by Lou Reed ‘nauseating’, and becoming vengeful!. I swear this story reads itself like a little novel.

And then it turns really batshit crazy. In May, when Reed was about to enter the Cleveland clinic for a liver transplant, the top of the record industry – which is part of the Illuminati of course – decided to ‘terminate with prejudice’ the Lou Reed situation.

So according to Hard Dawn, Lou Reed was injected with polonium, a deadly radioactive element which causes liver failure, when he was recuperating from surgery… what? What are the evidence? A police report recording suspicion of breaking and entering the hospital on the same day, and Lou Reed feeling ‘stronger than ever’ post surgery. However, he died a few months later.

Thus, you have the absurd story, the murder of Lou Reed by the record industry to save Lady Gaga’s career. This story reaches some biblical proportions in the rock star mythology, the new generation killing the parents to survive, and the undercurrent cannibalism and vampirism.. didn’t the author find the perfect metaphor to explain the sad shape of today’s music?