Lewis Allan Reed, known professionally as Lou Reed, was a singer, songwriter, musician, and poet best known as the lead guitarist and vocalist for the alternative rock band, The Velvet Underground.

Reed, in his youth, was anxious and awkward, experiencing panic attacks and possessing what his sister Merrill recalled as a "fragile temperament". However, music became his solace, enabling him to concentrate and find release. Without a formal music teacher, Reed taught himself guitar by tuning into the radio, swiftly cultivating a passion for rock and roll and rhythm and blues.

College was especially hard for Reed, and he had frequent breakdowns, becoming depressed and anxious as well as distancing himself from his friends and family. Reed’s parents took him to a psychologist who, unfortunately, convinced them that they were simply bad parents and that electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT, would be the best treatment for Reed’s "condition".

Reed attributed the torturous treatment to his father and later penned a song in 1974, titled "Kill Your Sons," detailing the experience. He asserted that the electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) caused significant trauma and memory loss. Reed alleged that his parents authorized the ECT due to his homosexual feelings, though his sister, with whom he had a close relationship, and other family members, do not corroborate his suspicions.

In 1964, Lou Reed founded the band that would later become known as The Velvet Underground. He served as the primary songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist.

Lou Reed formed the band that we would come to know as The Velvet Underground in 1964 and acted as the main songwriter, singer, and guitarist.

The band soon came to the attention of Andy Warhol. He incorporated them into the Electric Plastic Inevitable (a series of live events put on by Warhol). Warhol also introduced Reed to the German singer, Nico. She would record a number of songs with The Velvet Underground, and she and Reed were briefly lovers.[1]

Warhol also designed the famous banana album cover. It featured a yellow banana sticker that said: "peel slowly and see". When the sticker was peeled off, a pink peeled banana illustration was found underneath.

The “Velvets” released five albums before Reed’s departure in 1970. Although the band was not a huge commercial success while it was together, it has since become known as one of the most influential underground and alternative rock bands.

After 1970, Reed continued his career and released twenty albums of solo work. 1972’s Transformer was produced by none other than David Bowie, and brought Reed the success he hadn't achieved with The Velvet Underground. Transformer was the album that really put Reed on the map and was a milestone for glam rock. The album gave us “Walk on the Wild Side”, one of his greatest hits, which hit number 10 on the Billboard 200.

During the next few years, Reed struggled to recreate his previous success, and it took him until his 1989 album, New York, to work his way back into the limelight.

Although Reed is sometimes considered the first out rock star, Reed’s bisexuality was only implied — albeit heavily implied. In his biography, Notes from the Velvet Underground: The Life of Lou Reed, he was recalled as saying,

Being gay, I found that so many women — deluded creatures that they are — are attracted to you because you’re not interested in them … it came across as the ultimate cool.[2]

Reed often tried to downplay his bisexuality. He was rumored to have had a number of same-sex lovers throughout the 1960s and ’70s, and though they were well known at the time, they remain unconfirmed. His female lovers were unconvinced that he was strictly gay, though he never publicly spoke about the possibility of being bi. He did have a long-term relationship with a trans woman named Rachel and would refer to her with both male and female pronouns — sometimes in the same sentence.

He married designer Sylvia Morales in 1980, and she inspired him to write a number of songs, including "Think It Over" (1980) and "Heavenly Arms" (1982). The couple divorced in 1984.

In 2021, director Todd Haynes released a documentary about the Velvet Underground.