This is the best collection of Lou Reed's music there is! It includes all his essential 70's songs, which are Lou at his best.
There's even tracks from his once-rare very first solo album, tracks that the Velvets also recorded, like "Lisa Says". The only way this collection could be any better is if it were remastered. It sounds great, but could sound even better if it were remastered. Still, if you crank it up LOUD, it is AWESOME, and a 5 star album all-the-way through! THE most essential Lou Reed CD!

While it would be tempting to give a Five Star rating to Arista's recent Definitive Collection, RCA's Different Times anthology earns it hands-down thanks to a great set that collects Lou's finest songs from his best period: the seventies. Don't get me wrong: albums like The Bells, Growing Up In Public and Street Hassle (from his Arista years)all contained great moments. As did his eighties RCA albums like The Blue Mask and New Sensations. But this collection has the songs that made him a critical darling: "Vicious", "Walk On The Wild Side", "I Can't Stand It", etc. And, thank heavens, it doesn't include ANYTHING from Metal Machine Music! A key seventies anthology which shows off Reed's genius with panache and reverence.

A Lou Reed anthology is a tough proposition, and there have been plenty of botched attempts. If you've got the money, you could shell out for sets like "Rock and Roll Diary," "Between Thought and Expression," "The Definitive Collection" (NOT!!) or "NYC Man: The Ultimate Lou Reed Collection," but I find all of these to be highly problematic. Some do a mostly poor job of incorporating tracks from the Velvet Underground, others place too much emphasis on one or another phase of Reed's career or styles, and they just don't sound right.

Try to distill things down to a single disc and you've got a bigger challenge. RCA gave it a shot (early in Reed's solo career) with "Walk on the Wild Side," which takes you up to 1977, but I like the mix on this set - which covers the same period - better. Personal taste aside, I think the track selection offers a more representative overview of Reed's work from the 1972-1976 period, with more songs from "Berlin," "Sally Can't Dance," and "Coney Island Baby" than you'll find on the RCA compilation. The difference is the share given to "Rock'n'Roll Animal," reduced to just one cut on this set. That might seem like a cheat to those who regard "Rock'n'Roll Animal" as Reed's best album from this period, but the plain fact is that all but one song on "Animal" is a Velvets tune, and while those fine songs remain staples of Reed's live shows they weren't really what Reed was about in the '70s.

The bottom line is that - even at his primitive best - Reed is a difficult, challenging songwriter and performer, not easy to boil down to a few tracks. But I think this set does a better job than most of getting the casual listener interested in exploring more of that big, messy back-catalog, warts and all. In the meantime, enjoy the legend of "decadent" Lou at his best on this 17-track sampler, which concludes with the beautiful and touching "Coney Island Baby," effectively putting the lie to the legend. I guess life is complex after all. Long live Daddy Lou!

i didn't know who lou reed was until i saw the movie trainspotting. the movie played the song 'perfect day' as renton sunk into the floor after a hit of heroine.
i found this cd at the library and was so happy. i threw it in the player and was drifted away into a beautiful oblivion.
this is a must have cd.

Here is a new Lou Reed collection that definitely belongs in all fans collection of the man. Different Times: Lou Reed In The '70s is a great 17 song retrospective spanning all material from 6 of his 8 '70s RCA releases (nothing from Lou Reed Live & Metal Machine Music...That's a different story altogether). Only 5 tunes "Walk On The Wild Side", "Sweet Jane", "Coney Island Baby", "Sally Can't Dance" & "Satellite Of Love" are hold-overs from his previous Walk On The Wild Side: The Best Of Lou Reed/RCA. Great liner notes on Lou's '70s RCA days are included detailing the tunes included, some cool pix and a great black/red/white pix disc is really hot! All the material is digitally remastered and will Rock you out full blast in true '70s Lou style! If RCA would only now issue a counterpart second collection of Lou's '80s work say...Defintely Different Times: Lou Reed In The '80s...We'll all be cool.