Lou Reed: Transformer (RCA)

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.