The Raven

At a time when widespread claims of "groundbreaking" and "daring" have rendered the terms all but meaningless, leave it to Lou Reed to breathe new life into the accolades that have followed him throughout his career. With The Raven, Reed delivers an extraordinary album that ranks alongside his most powerful and groundbreaking works.

"The Raven record is the culmination of absolutely everything I've been working on, except for photography," says Reed. "All the ideas about sound, mixing, writing, emphasis and rhyme -- it's all in there. It's the culmination of all that came before it, everything."

The Raven is a two-hour excursion into the obsessive world of Edgar Allan Poe as filtered through Reed's eclectic sensibility. In addition to bandmates Fernando Saunders, Mike Rathke and Tony Smith, a phenomenal array of guest artists -- including Laurie Anderson, Elizabeth Ashley, David Bowie, Steve Buscemi, Ornette Coleman, the Blind Boys of Alabama, Willem Dafoe and Kate & Anna McGarrigle -- take part in what may be Reed's most ambitious album yet.