Lou Reed

The Raven

The Godfather of Punk/Alt and everything in between recently released his new re-imagination of Edgar Allen Poe's classic works in his new two CD set. The Raven brilliantly captures the voices and vices of Poe and Reed, and features a handful of Lou's buddies including David Bowie, Ornette Coleman, Laurie Anderson, the Blind Boys of Alabama, Willem Dafoe, Steve Buscemi, et al. Lou worked with AOL Music to create this first of its kind Winamp 3 Skin which, in addition to a multi-function media player - is also a CLOCK which synch's up with your computer and has Lou Reed telling the user the time, and what they should be doing with their time. Check it out! User Interface and coding by Petrol Designs.

Staff review

Lou Reed lends his voice to this truely unusual skin. The clock mode is especially interesting and errr...disturbing. If this grabs you then you should check out Lou's new album based on the literary classic "The Raven".

Comments

ESTA s padrisimo de lo mejo Sino Que El Mejory me lo e descargado concegirlo encantaria y venta Pero Aplicado La Primera caratula bu - September 10, 2010 by [email protected]

I really loved this... for - I don't like punk and I've never heard of Lou Reed, but when I found this, it won the skins contest hands down: I am a great fan of Poe's The Raven. I was all set to make it THE skin of choice for my Netbook, until 10AM, when it turned off my music and informed me it surfs porn on the internet at 10AM.It makes a similar announcement every hour, clearing the playlist whenever it does so.There is no way to turn this feature off.Even if it quoted The Raven, this feature renders the skin totally unusable. - January 28, 2009 by Canid Canidae

fantastic wow - really cool. - February 8, 2008 by sarah taylor

The Raven - Mostly Good - Things I love : The raven itself is detailed and the movement of the wing is good. It is very sleek. Having an audio file at the top of the hour is cool too. Things I have a problem with: The buttons are way too small and it is difficult to see which buttons are which. There is no way to make the raven larger to compensate for smaller buttons and if the audio file inturrupts a shoutcast radio station, I cannot figgure out how to get it back without restarting. - April 8, 2007 by Maria Goff

Could be great! - This skin really deserves a 5 star rating, but for the removing my playlist and telling me the time every hour. I find it very annoying that there is no option to turn this off and on. Another idea would be to tell me the time, but leave my playlist up. Otherwise I really like it. I like that the bird talks and the controls are concealed under the wing. - March 3, 2007 by pamazon x

SHUT LOU! - Many people complained about Lou?s annoying comments every hour, but nobody really took a quick look on how to fix this! STOP your whining now, there IS a solution!!! If you want Lou to SHUT UP you just have to remember every time you open winamp to open the bird?s wing, choose CLOCK view and there on the screen on the top right of the time there is this little sound symbol! Just click on it and it disables Lou from breaking your .... concentration. IT?S EVEN RIGHT HERE ON THE PICTURE, you must be BLIND not to see it! Yes ok ok sometimes you might forget and it will make you wanna break the pc to smithereens heh. And yes its not a permanent solution since you have to do this EVERY TIME you open winamp, but if you really like the skin it?s a small price to pay ;) - December 3, 2005 by Karl Totten

Awesome - I love this skin, especially the wing opening, but I dislike how it shuts off the playlist every hour. Is there a way to turn this off? - July 1, 2005 by Nicole K

aaaaaaaaaaaaaa - Why I can't download it!!??? - April 17, 2005 by Jesse Carpenter

Awesome - Oh my god I love this skin it talks and its sooo cool tho had a little trouble downloading it it was so cool afterwards! hope ya make more skins like this - December 4, 2004 by Arianna Burke

Very Cool - Controls are a little small, but what can you expect from a raven. It think this is the most uniqu skin yet!!! - May 14, 2004 by Jeff Taylor

rock! - i love this skin. i dont have many skins on my computer that i actually use but this one is creat. scares me sometimes simply because at 7 am this morning it told me to get my ass out of bed. but hey..thats lou reed for ya! it made my computer crash a few times, but now seems to be working fine. the best part is, alot of skins i dont like in either full mode or compact..but for this one i cant quite decide which is better. rock on. - February 3, 2004 by amber sjomeling

aahhh!! such a great skin!!!! - this skin is so awsome!!!! i love it! - January 10, 2004 by David H

Strange, but I like it! - I finally was able to download this skin (there was a crashing error before) and I love it! It's very creative, though I get sort of creeped out over the abrupt stoppage of music for some odd saying. This last time it stopped my mp3 to say "6pm - subway...take the subway - don't get mugged!" Very creative, dude! :) - November 23, 2003 by Savage Artistry

super - it's super skin it looks very good and work very good too - November 11, 2003 by Agnieszka Cherubi?ska

I don't know who Lou Reed is... - ...but man, he must be one hell of a guy to get a great skin like this! Creepy, dark, mysterious... ...this is an awesome skin... - October 30, 2003 by Phillip Thompson

this great - this skin is so creative and for me is so great, 'coz the reavens are great animal, for me - October 14, 2003 by adrian lara

Pitbull - I love the look but hate the little chat thing every hour. I did a search for hidden files and deleted the mp3's but it still shuts off my playlist every hour... I have to uninstall it regardless of how much I love it. - September 24, 2003 by Dustin Hardy

spooky - Well...it's a really good looking skin. but i haven't heard it talking to me.... but it rocks anyway - September 21, 2003 by thijs konsten

Awesome - Alright as soon as I downloaded winamp 3 this was my first skin. I admit that after the first hour I was freaked out. Lou Reed stated something freaky, but then if you're an Edgar Allan Poe fan, you should be used to it. Weird stuff, I like it. The bird kicks ass! Please make more Edgar Allen Poe skins!! - September 7, 2003 by Carrie Ford

Listen... - This skin has a majesty and and an imposing authority that exude a powerful karma. It creates its own mood instantly. Nothing else comes close. Regrettably Lou Reed has unforgivably wasted the opportunity to make a worthwhile audio contribution to this skin. When I reflect on Lou's astonishing catalogue of musical achievements I struggle to comprehend how these largely irrelevant comments passed his own internal QA. The lyrical and imaginative poverty of these saddens me. I can only hope that Lou may come to realise how important this venture was and we get a re-release soon. Yes, and by the way it's OSCILLOSCOPE - August 17, 2003 by Dave Chesterman

The Raven In The Mist. - Dark, Subtle, Brooding, the list could go on. The Lou Reed statements are amusing at first but the opertunity to turn them off is also good. Lovely work.666 - August 8, 2003 by sammoth vindicated

best - this is the best skin ever - July 26, 2003 by mentor salihu

bla - This skin sucks but it nice!!! - July 25, 2003 by Fredde W

ooo - very nice...i shall download it right this instant. chow - July 21, 2003 by jessy singh

What I can say? - It's just the best skin... really wonderful! - July 21, 2003 by Eloiza Cerutti

I like it! - That's my favourite! - July 18, 2003 by Kasia Najda

lou reed the raven - superb!! - July 17, 2003 by fernando santos

I LOVE IT!!! - Its just beautyfull!!! I love it! I signed up to say this! Anyway there should be more files we can download with Reed telling poems! It suprised me when it suddenly started to talk! Keep up the great work! I love it! And make more stuff for it :D and maybe even a random poem teller for the visualization thingie! It is the skin I like best here! :D - July 10, 2003 by Daniel Horn

The Raven - I'm going to talk about the CD of Lou "The Raven". Lou Reed is growing with time. The Raven is a masterpiece:"Call on me", "Vanishing Act", "Who am I"... I really love Lou's songs, lirics and music. - July 6, 2003 by alvaro madrid

great. - I downloaded it, and I have to say it looks good.. - July 4, 2003 by repe sorsa

Cool but annoying - This would have been a 4 star skin if it didnt delete everything in my playlist and play its own mp3 every hour... The buttons are also kinda small too so it looses another star. Other then that very cool looking. - June 29, 2003 by Mike Dermont

Very Nice Lou! - This is a dark and gothic skin that fits right into my black background and music :) As I am a fan of Lou Reed and Old Poe's fine poetry I'm glad to have found this one! By the way, the clocktalk would be better if it didn't stop the music, but since you can turn it of I'll give it a five :) - June 26, 2003 by Damien Satanson

Nice - Its functional cool looking and just awesome :D - June 21, 2003 by 4x4 Evo

ok, i am retarded - You can turn lou reed off. Click on the clock mode, and then click on the little speaker. It mutes. This skin is a perfect five - June 18, 2003 by r s

awesome...big but - This skin is awesomely creative and beautiful. But, there's a big problem with it. The wierd little function that has lou reed telling you the time every hour has a bug that clears whatever playlist I'm currently using - every hour - replacing it with the the voice time recording. It's very annoying. The music stops and I have to reload my playlist. I'd love to use this skin but as long as it keeps doing this it's impractical. Bummer. I've emailed Petrol Designs to see if they can fix the bug or take the lou reed cuckoo out of it. - June 18, 2003 by Lucky Luke

Cool - I'm not a punk/gothic/alto or somethin'. Just think the skin is really good. - June 10, 2003 by TJ From Heaven

uh... it's good.... - this skin is good, especially the colour, lol. it's really original and the wing thing is cool. it's just the buttons that r hard to find... i couldn't find pause and play and stuff first.. o well, it's still good. keep it up - June 10, 2003 by sneha bolloju

CooL MaN... - JUST.............. COOLLL SKINN.... - June 10, 2003 by Miller Pug

AWWWWWESOME! - I like this skin a lot! Maybe the display is a bit small... but the skin is always great! - June 9, 2003 by Madmax Metalmaster

not bad at all - i like the skin but the raven is a distraction and i dont like the ideo of Lou Reed sayin the time..... - June 3, 2003 by Martin Vrabec

cool - very cool i like it - May 25, 2003 by dai ngo lu

Encore - Hey, I really like this skin a lot. And it reminds me of Edgar Allen Poe. I give this skin a 5 Star Rating :) - May 25, 2003 by Ali X_x

silly raven - Granted I'm a bit of greenhorn in the winamp universe, but out of all the skins I've downloaded, this is my favorite. One problem, I'll be rockin' out, then come midnight and that damned bird starts runnin' his mouth. Although this "alarm" feature is a little annoying, the skin still not only rules, but it also gets 5 stars from me. - May 20, 2003 by Andrew Waller

Nice - I'ts a cool skin with nice buttons and i like the wing thing, and i love lou reed. - May 7, 2003 by Fituklessa I thveng

Looks too big - I would download this, but it looks like it would be too big. - May 6, 2003 by Grey Haven

:D Nice one - Unlike the rest of u I do not think this is a scary skin, I'm not a punk either, it's really nicely done and does Edgar Alan Poe's "Raven" justice. - April 30, 2003 by Marius Carlia

great job!!!!!!!!! - i really like it so much....... hey ol of u nilsoft peope, do something different, like a HOT BABY SKIN or some like that. it will be awsome more, unless u got something better tahn i talk bout it. make my wish come true buddy..................... - April 24, 2003 by yokie kerendz

55 - cools - April 23, 2003 by max caviness

good - good - April 19, 2003 by Su Karen

edgar allan poe rocks my socks - this thing is hella cool, especially how you can open up the wing and have it in clock mode... and it just looks so awesome - April 19, 2003 by amanda malek

Originaly skin - I like this - April 18, 2003 by Sergey Klimov

Ugh..... - For satanists... Not too friendly.. awful, I am SCARED~!!! - April 17, 2003 by Dima Fomenko

.not friendly Interface. - Have some nice color combinations but that's all. Small cbuttons and users that use 1280x1024 resolution must come closer to screen to find the right button to press. The gfx part needs some more contrast cause it's way too dark now. Componenets aren't fully skinned (window elements). The wing part could be animated with frames on a right prespective....now seems to be a rushed creation. - April 10, 2003 by Vangelis Makridakis

muy original - muy original me gusto por lo del reloj - April 7, 2003 by octavio mora

Stars for originality only - Fitz's law takes a serious back seat here. It's as if the designers said "Hmm, let's see how small we can make the controls before one needs an electron microscope to see them". Clicking the wing to expose additional controls? Come on guys. You are good visual designers but you need to focus on at least a reasonable level of usability. UI design is not just looks. And yes, Virginia, skins are UIs. Just my .02 - April 6, 2003 by Vytas Gaizutis