Lou Reed- The Blue Mask

Vinyl LP pressing. Digitally remastered edition of this 1982 release. The Blue Mask is the eleventh studio album by Lou Reed. It was the first album released after Reed left Arista Records and returned to RCA Records. The album was released near Reed's 40th birthday, and covers topics of marriage and settling down, alongside themes of violence, paranoia, and alcoholism. Reed and Robert Quine's guitars were mixed separately in the right and left stereo channels respectively. To differentiate his guitar's sound from Reed's, Quine used D tuning, playing each song as if it was one major second lower. Quine, who years earlier followed the Velvet Underground across the country and taped several of their early shows (they were later released as Bootleg Series Volume 1: The Quine Tapes), was a perfect complement to Reed. Longtime Reed collaborator Fernando Saunders plays the bass and adds backing vocals (most noticeably, a falsetto refrain in the outro to "Heavenly Arms") to this album. The drummer for the album was the studio ace Doane Perry who later joined Jethro Tull.

In order to ship your records to you in the safest way possible, and to avoid seam splits, we recommend removing the record from the jacket when shipping. That said, we will never open sealed records and do this without your permission. If you would like your records shipped to you this way, please request this in the notes section of checkout. Want to see how we pack a standard Vinyl order?
Check out this video:

Darkside Records - How We Ship

Please review our shipping policy (link below) for information on our shipping rates and import fees.

All domestic Vinyl orders ship via UPS Ground (with the exception of PO Boxes, APO/FPO where we must choose USPS Priority) for a flat rate of $7.99 + $1 for each additional item. We take great care in our packaging to ensure orders arrive to you quickly and safely. Most orders are shipped within 24 hours of your order being placed (with some exceptions, e.g. post RSD when we have a massive influx of orders) and are packaged in Whiplash LP mailers that are specifically designed to protect your records. We use 100% recyclable packing materials, from paper tape to HexcelPack, to do our small part to cut out single-use plastics.

International Orders: Please note that we are not charging/collecting import fees/GST. These fees will be determined by your country upon entry of your package. Please keep this in mind when ordering that these extra fees will most likely apply. We know and agree that international shipping rates are incredibly expensive. Unfortunately at this time we do not feel that USPS is a reliable option for us to ship international orders so our prices exclusively reflect those of UPS. Please reach out to us with any questions.