Lou Reed entered the new millennium with Ecstasy. The mid-tempo rocker Paranoia Key of E opens the album, a love song of dreams & nightmares closer to his talking than his singing style. On the next, Mystic Child, he sings! Impressive guitar work with stylistic shifts, an urgent beat and passionate vocals make it a great song.
The song Mad, about domestic strife, has an interesting, jazzy arrangement, whilst the title track, contrary to its title, is a subdued number in slow tempo, giving impressions of
New York with some personal reminiscences. Another song in this style is Tatters - poetic lyrics but not much of a tune.
Modern Dance is a ballad, mostly tender but containing highly melodic segments with driving guitars over a lilting beat. As the song progresses, lovely backing vocals join in to make it sublime. The fierce Future Farmers of America blazes like a comet over the hitherto mostly quiet landscape. Once again Lou sings, the guitars roar and the melody is gripping and memorable.
Then comes one of Reed's most delicate and melancholy songs, Turning Time Around. This one is in the league of Perfect Day and
Satellite of Love. What a magical composition with its tender tune, stirring lyrics and sensitive delivery! O by the way, it's about how to properly designate love & mentions Harry, family, lust and the heart's hieroglyphic.
Rock Minuet is a tour de force, a sort of short
Street Hassle for the late 1990s. Laurie Anderson contributes electric violin on this sordid biographical tale of woe. After that, Baton Rouge is a welcome return to normality even though it deals with marital strife, whilst Rouge is a melancholy one-minute instrumental with
Laurie again on electric violin.
The sprawling excursion Like A Possum, all 18 minutes of it, is a feast. Perhaps, like the aforementioned Rock Minuet, it's an updated Street Hassle. The guitars groan, wail and whine as Lou sings of the hole in his heart as huge as a truck. This great Lou Reed album from 2000 concludes with the roaring rocker Big Sky. Ecstasy compares very well with his best albums like Transformer,
The Blue Mask and New York.