Rob Bowmanan, All Music Guide

Produced by David Bowie and Mick Ronson, Transformer has a lushness and beauty to its production and arrangements that Reed's material had never before received. The hit single "Walk on the Wild Side" was a fluke brought about by the actions of one fill-in disc jockey at the BBC. The song chronicles several personages from Andy Warhol's Factory retinue, including speed-freaks and transvestites giving head; it is boggling to this day that it got by AM radio programmers. Other Reed classics such as "Vicious" and "Satellite of Love" get similar treatment.

Mark Deming, All Music Guide

David Bowie has never been shy about acknowledging his influences, and since the boho decadence and sexual ambiguity of the Velvet Underground's music had a major impact on Bowie's work, it was only fitting that as Ziggy Stardust-mania was reaching its peak, Bowie would offer Lou Reed some much needed help with his career, which was stuck in neutral after his first solo album came and went. Musically, Reed's work didn't have too much in common with the sonic bombast of the glam scene, but at least it was a place where his eccentricities could find a comfortable home, and on Transformer Bowie and his right-hand man, Mick Ronson, crafted a new sound for Reed that was better fitting (and more commercially astute) than the ambivalent tone of his first solo album. Ronson adds some guitar raunch to "Vicious" and "Hangin' Round" that's a lot flashier than what Reed cranked out with the Velvets, but still honors Lou's strengths in guitar-driven hard rock, while the imaginative arrangements Ronson cooked up for "Perfect Day," "Walk on the Wild Side," and "Goodnight Ladies" blend pop polish with musical thinking just as distinctive as Reed's lyrical conceits. And while Reed occasionally overplays his hand in writing stuff he figured the glam kids wanted ("Make Up" and "I'm So Free" being the most obvious examples), "Perfect Day," "Walk on the Wild Side," and "New York Telephone Conversation" proved he could still write about the demimonde with both perception and respect. The sound and style of Transformer would in many ways define Lou Reed's career in the 1970s, and while it led him into a style that proved to be a dead end, you can't deny that Bowie and Ronson gave their hero a new lease on life — and a solid album in the bargain.

Jerry McCulley, Amazon.com

This sophomore release by the Velvet Underground cofounder has long been hailed as one of the key touchstones of the punk and alternative eras that followed it. Reinforcing the literary adage to "write what you know," Reed paints an alternately detached/debauched portrait of the drag-and-drugs-infused underground of Warhol's New York, a place, time, and mindset so compelling it has largely overshadowed the rest of the singer-songwriter's mercurial career. That the album would also give Reed an unlikely Top 20 pop hit via the teasing, twisted sexuality of "Walk on the Wild Side" is but one of its deep, rewarding ironies. Indeed, as produced by David Bowie and guitarist and cohort Mick Ronson at the height of their own Ziggy Stardust fame, Reed's songs are cast in a seductive cabaret setting that's more Jacques Brel than Lower East Side. This 30th-anniversary edition features two unreleased acoustic demos ("Hangin' 'Round," "Perfect Day"), a vintage radio spot by announcer and word-jazz cult fave Ken Nordine, and a new illustrated booklet and perceptive essay by Michael Hill.

Dan Leone, Amazon.co.uk

Transformer, Lou Reed's second post- Velvet Underground album, was produced by David Bowie and Mick Ronson (Bowie's guitarist) in 1972. It features such classics as "Vicious" and "Walk On The Wild Side", as well as a bopping, subdued version of "Andy's Chest", which the Velvet Underground had already recorded. The album's consistently goofy and great back-up vocals are courtesy of Bowie and Ronson. Lou's usual cast of characters are present throughout: transvestites, junkies, weirdoes, Holly, Candy, Little Joe, Sugar, Jacki--even Harry, Mark and John, who stop by to say hi in the middle of "Satellite Of Love". "Goodnight Ladies" features a rocking tuba downbeat and a baritone sax that will wail you away to la-la land. Other than that, it is packed with Reed's raw guitar and rah-rah lyrics, like, "The tinsel light of starbreak/Is all that's left to applaud my heartbreak/And at 11 o'clock I watch the network news".

Matthew Stephens, Pitchfork Media, March 12, 2003

Being Lou Reed in 1972 was a raw deal: two years after walking away from one of the greatest and most influential bands in rock history, he found himself a penniless, strung-out wreck, with a career suddenly and seriously on the wane. To make matters worse, his self-titled solo debut, released earlier that year, was a monumental flop, a hastily thrown together collection of second rate re-recordings of Velvet Underground outtakes that lacked the intensity and focus of his earlier music. Reed was at a crossroads, unsure of which direction to take his newfound independence.

At the same time, a new trend was emerging across the pond. Glam rock began to flower in 1971, and by the following year had swept up countless British kids, turning them from restless, discontended youths to consummate, androgynous hipsters decked out in platforms, sequins and imposing hair. It was the first mainstream rock movement to openly acknowledge the Velvets' influence, and in Marc Bolan, Ian Hunter and Bryan Ferry, Reed began to see his protégés: the coarse, primal rock 'n' roll he pioneered had found its audience.

One of his progeny, a young David Bowie, was hot off the success of his chart-topping The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust, and was perhaps the most vociferous in his love of the Velvets and the incalculable influence they'd had on his music. When given the chance, Bowie and guitarist Mick Ronson offered to produce Reed's solo follow-up: what followed was undeniably one of both glam rock's and Reed's finest moments, one that gave him a left-field radio hit and a blueprint for much of his solo work to follow.

Thirty years on, Transformer still sounds startlingly fresh, free from many of the clichés that taint other similarly minded records of the period. It also works as an interesting diversion from most of VU's work: where they clearly had a full-band aesthetic, and often leaned toward the avant-garde, Transformer took the strong pop undercurrent that ran throughout their records and indulged. It's still fascinating to hear Reed outside the messy underproduction of the Velvets, yet even with Bowie and Ronson broadening the arrangements, Transformer feels remarkably natural. Their production work was so loaded that, were it not for the incredibly focused songs beneath, it might have been overbearing. But with a solid base, the ornate arrangements help bring these songs to life, lending Reed's music a broader palette. Lou himself, by contrast, sounds as intimate as ever on the record's more sedate tracks, crooning in a sensitive lilt that maintains his blissful, effortless cool.

Transformer kicks off with the aptly titled "Vicious", a stiff, snot-nosed Godzilla of a rock song, decked out in leather and eye shadow, and drenched in the kind of punchy power chords intimately familiar to anyone owning VU's odds-and-sods compilations. Its gleefully tongue-in-cheek lyrics are among the album's highlights, with Reed's impetuous condescension beating down his subject's ego: "When I see you walking down the street/ I step on your hands and I mangle your feet/ You're not the kind of person that I even want to meet."

Elsewhere, "Perfect Day" earns the distinction of being among the least characteristic songs Reed ever wrote; while its power ballad production and melody are enjoyable on their own terms, the song feels trapped under his dry vocal delivery, and falls somewhat flat as a result. "Satellite of Love" is still the bizarrely affecting centerpiece, serving as a poignant reminder of Reed's underrated gift for melody, which often eclipsed the signature, visceral abrasiveness he's more often recognized for. And of course, there's "Walk on the Wild Side", the classic tale of NYC gender-bending that garnered Reed the only real commercial airplay of his career.

This new edition adds acoustic demos of "Hangin' Round" and "Perfect Day", the latter notable for a newfound emotional push in its minimalism. The remastering is nicely executed, clarifying the sound without bastardizing the occasionally dated production. This, along with the incredibly thorough liner notes and beautiful packaging make the reissue worthwhile for those who already own the record, and a must for first-timers just delving into Reed's solo work.

Andy Gill, Q Magazine, October 2000, )

Like some old glam queen plastering make-up on to try and stay young, Transformer (1972) has aged badly. The Bowie/Ronson production, which sounded bright and sassy at the time, now seems brittle, and apart from Walk On The Wild Side, Satellite Of Love, Vicious and Perfect Day, the rest is forgettably mediocre.

Nick Tosches, Rolling Stone, January 4, 1973

A real cockteaser, this album. That great cover: Lou and those burned-out eyes staring out in grim black and white beneath a haze of gold spray paint, and on the back, ace berdache Ernie Thormahlen posing in archetypal butch, complete with cartoon erectile bulge, short hair, motorcycle cap, and pack of Luckies up his T-shirt sleeve, and then again resplendent in high heels, panty hose, rouge, mascara, and long ebony locks; the title with all its connotations of finality and electro-magnetic perversity. Your preternatural instincts tell you it's all there, but all you're given is glint, flash and frottage. 
Lou Reed is probably a genius. During his days as singer/songwriter/ guitarist with the Velvet Underground, he was responsible for some of the most amazing stuff ever to be etched in vinyl; all those great, grinding, abrasive songs about ambivalence, bonecrushers, Asthmador, toxic psychosis and getting dicked, stuff like "Venus in Furs," "Heroin," "Lady Godiva's Operation," "Sister Ray," "White Light/White Heat," and those wonderful cottonmouth lullabies like "Candy Says" and "Pale Blue Eyes." His first solo album, Lou Reed, was a bit of a disappointment in light of his work with the Velvets. Reed himself was somewhat dissatisfied with it. 
Between that album and this one came the ascendancy of David Bowie, a man who had been more peripherally influenced by the cinematic lyrics and sexual warpage of the Velvet Underground. Lou Reed, in turn, was drawn to Bowie's music. Bowie included Velvet tunes such as "Waiting for the Man" and "White Light/White Heat" in his stage repertoire; Reed, last summer, made his first English appearance with Bowie. Now, on Transformer, Bowie is Reed's producer. 
David Bowie's show biz pansexuality has been more than a minor catalyst in Lou Reed's emergence from the closet here. Sure, homosexuality was always an inherent aspect of the Velvet Underground's ominous and smutsome music, but it was always a pushy, amoral and aggressive kind of sexuality. God knows rock & roll could use, along with a few other things, some good faggot energy, but, with some notable exceptions, the sexuality that Reed profiles on Transformer is timid and flaccid. 
"Make Up," a tune about putting on make-up and coming "out of the closets/out on the street," is as corny and innocuous as "I Feel Pretty" from West Side Story. There's no energy, no assertion. It isn't decadent, it isn't perverse, it isn't rock & roll, it's just a stereotypical image of the faggot-as-sissy traipsing around and lisping about effeminacy. 
"Goodnight Ladies" is another cliche about the lonely Saturday nights, the perfumed decadence and the wistful sipping of mixed drinks at closing time. 
"New York Telephone Conversation" is a cutesy poke at New York pop-sphere gossip and small talk, as if anyone possibly gave two shits about it in the first place. 
Perhaps, the worst of the batch, "Perfect Day" is a soft lilter about spending a wonderful day drinking Sangria in the park with his girlfriend, about how it made him feel so normal, so good. Wunnerful, wunnerful, wunnerful. 
And then there's the good stuff. Real good stuff. "Vicious" is almost abrasive enough and the lyrics are great: "Vicious/You want me to hit you with a stick/When I watch you come/Baby, I just wanna run far away/When I see you walkin' down the street/I step on your hands and I mangle your feet/Oh, baby, you're so vicious/Why don't you swallow razor blades/Do you think I'm some kinda gay blade?" It's the best song he's done since the days of the Velvet Underground, the kind of song he can do best (his voice has practically no range). 
"Walk on the Wild Side" is another winner, a laid-back, seedy pullulator in the tradition of "Pale Blue Eyes," the song is about various New York notables and their ramiform homo adventures, punctuated eerily by the phrases "walk on the wild side" and "and the colored girls go 'toot-ta-doo, toot-ta-doo.'" Great images of hustling, defensive blowjobs and someone shaving his legs while hitchhiking 1500 miles from Miami to New York that fade into a baritone sax coda. 
"Hangin' 'Round" and "Satellite of Love" are the two remaining quality cuts, songs where the sexuality is protopathic rather than superficial. 
Reed himself says he thinks the album's great. I don't think it's nearly as good as he's capable of doing. He seems to have the abilities to come up with some really dangerous, powerful music, stuff that people like Jagger and Bowie have only rubbed knees with. He should forget this artsy-fartsy kind of homo stuff and just go in there with a bad hangover and start blaring out his visions of lunar assfuck. That'd be really nice.

Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone, issue 892, March 28, 2002

There's good fake Bowie (you remember Al Stewart's "Year of the Cat"), and there's bad fake Bowie (you don't remember Spacehog), and, of course, there's transcendent fake Bowie (you could probably hum "Rocket Man" right now). But Lou Reed's Transformer is one of the all-time great fake-Bowie albums, partly because David Bowie himself produced it (with longtime guitar pal Mick Ronson), and partly because Bowie copped so much of his steez from Reed in the first place. Reed's 1972 solo debut, Lou Reed, had been a folksy beauty, with ballads such as "Going Down," "I Love You" and "Love Makes You Feel." But Transformer turns up the guitar flash for a glam manifesto every bit as outrageous as Lou Reed himself. If a sexy New York sociopath in lipstick and a motorcycle jacket sneering, "You hit me with a flower" isn't glam, what is? 
On Transformer, Reed chronicles a pansexual night world of leather queens, slick little girls, eyebrow pluckers, lemon-peel suckers, down-and-out angels looking for soul food and love sweet love. He speeds away in bitch-rockers such as "Vicious" and "Hangin' Round," while Bowie and Ronson add a touch of sentimental splendor to the ballads, especially the doo-wop-inflected goof "Andy's Chest," the ironically majestic "Satellite of Love" and the unironically openhearted "Perfect Day." 
But the most famous song here is also the best, "Walk on the Wild Side," which doo-doo-doo'd its way into history as one of the filthiest and most terrifying Top Forty hits ever. Reed's acoustic guitar, Herbie Flowers' stand-up bass and Ronnie Ross' sax take off from Jean Knight's classic R&B shuffle "Mr. Big Stuff" for a decadent tour of Reed's old Warhol Factory crowd: Holly Woodlawn, Candy Darling, Sugar Plum Fairy and others. Over the years, this song has somehow managed to survive hip-hop samples, Reed's infamous TV ad for Honda scooters ("Don't settle for walking" -- yeah, right), and getting played by Tori Spelling on the high school radio station on Beverly Hills 90120. On his 1978 live album Take No Prisoners, Reed does an utterly over-the-top seventeen-minute version, adding much, much more than you ever wanted to know about the characters ("Little Joe was an idiot!"). Reed and Bowie never made another album together, but Transformer still looms large in both their legends.

Pat Blashill, Rolling Stone, issue 908, October 31, 2002

Lou Reed's second solo album could have been called Transgressor: His focus was all on deranging the senses, dressing up as the opposite sex and, most decadent of all, locking up your heart behind a wall of anger and spite. Released in 1972, on the heels of Reed's days of ferocious experimentalism with the Velvet Underground, Transformer was the moment when the Seventies poster boy for shock-rock therapy found a balance between unbelievably catchy tunes and protopunk reportage from the gutters of Manhattan. The conventional gossip about Transformer is that producers David Bowie and Mick Ronson did almost everything and Reed was barely conscious for the sessions. What is more certainly true is that it was payback time: In return for everything he had learned from the Velvet Underground, Bowie brought an element of theatricality to Reed's sound.
This meant that ironic vaudevillian ditties such as "Goodnight Ladies" were interspersed with astonishing, glammed-up rockers like "I'm So Free." The sarcasm throughout is palpable: On the latter, when Reed mock-vamps "I'm so free - late in the evening" like a Motown backup vocalist, he more truly sounds like an urban creature who's been cauterized by a thorough lack of last chances. The album includes Reed's genius signature tune, "Walk on the Wild Side," but the most remarkable number is "Satellite of Love," a gorgeous metaphor of betrayal and detachment. It takes a few listens, but eventually, as the fuzzy-blanket piano line and angelic vocal "bom-bom-boms!" settle around your shoulders, you begin to realize that the song is less about NASA than about launching a love up into the stars, where it will never, ever get hurt again.

As an extremely suggestive and literate rock song, "Satellite" doesn't prove that he was rock's greatest living poet, but it shows that, for a time, Lou Reed himself dared to believe he was that good. Which is probably why Transformer is so brilliant.

© Frank Steven Groen