The Raven (Lou Reed album)

The Raven
Studio album by Lou Reed
Released	January 28, 2003 (2003-01-28)
Recorded	2002
Studio	Various Sear Sound, New York City Clinton Recording Studio, New York Cove City Sound Studios, New York The Looking Glass Studios, New York Roof Recording, New York
Genre	Rock
Length	125:04 (2-disc edition) * 74:59 (1-disc edition)
Label	Sire
Producer	Lou Reed, Hal Willner
Lou Reed chronology
Legendary Lou Reed (2002) The Raven (2003) Animal Serenade (2004)

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	54/100[1]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[2]
Rolling Stone	[3]
Blender	[4]
Pitchfork Media	(2.0/10)[5]
Robert Christgau	B+[6]

The Raven is the nineteenth solo studio album by American rock musician Lou Reed, released on January 28, 2003 by Sire Records. It is a concept album, recounting the short stories and poems of Edgar Allan Poe through word and song, and was based on his 2000 opera co-written with Robert Wilson, POEtry.^[7]

The Raven features new and very different versions of two songs that Reed had released on earlier albums: "Perfect Day" (originally found on 1972's Transformer) and "The Bed" (from 1973's Berlin). In addition to Reed, the album features a number of guest vocalists including Laurie Anderson, David Bowie, Anohni Hegarty, Steve Buscemi and Willem Dafoe. The co-producer of the album, Hal Willner, had previously overseen the Poe tribute album Closed on Account of Rabies.

The recording was simultaneously released as a two-disc set of recordings and in an edited single-disc version. Painter and filmmaker Julian Schnabel created the cover. The Raven would prove to be the final solo rock album by Reed, as 2007's Hudson River Wind Meditations consisted entirely of meditational new-age music, and 2011's Lulu was a collaborative rock album with heavy metal band Metallica.