Transformer is by no means a pristine album (for that you'd probably have to go back to the Velvets and Loaded). Some of the lyrics can be clunkier than usual for this notoriously discursive songwriter, while there are some cuts where you wish Bowie'd cracked the whip harder on Reed the Vocalist (those half-hearted "whoos" on "Andy's Chest," for instance). And that harrumphing tuba in half-serious gay pride song "Make Up" is just too camp to work as more than a fleeting joke. Per the period, Reed sometimes plays dress-up (the back cover features photos of our man both in drag and rough trade pose), but he can't quite refrain from winking at the audience as he does it. For all his skills as a musical monologist, Reed doesn't commit to his roles in this disc as strongly as, say, Bowie does in Ziggy Stardust. It may undermine his effects, but it also adds a sparkle to Transformer that Bowie can't capture in his sludgier dramatic moments.

New York pop for a naively jaded audience: spring's not just about the bloomin' flowers, you know.