For me, I'd have you start where I started, with "Rock and Roll Animal." It's performed live by Reed backed by what was basically Alice Cooper's band, and that particular album's selections are the ones that sound most conventionally like 70's guitar-driven rock and roll. Very accessible: Intro/Sweet Jane, Heroin, and Rock and Roll are the three songs I'd pick for you if you were in a hurry.
It's interesting from there to listen to other versions of Sweet Jane, maybe other recordings of Reed's as a solo artist, or with VU, or covers. In a lot of ways, when I was a kid, listening to the newest Lou Reed record was searching for another song as good as Sweet Jane.
I guess from there, assuming you see something in Sweet Jane in any of its forms, I'd go back to him with the Velvet Underground, maybe listen to Loaded with an eye toward how adaptable and influential those songs are.
Hope this helps. In a lot of ways the value of Lou Reed and the VU is not what they did but what they inspired in others.
It's interesting from there to listen to other versions of Sweet Jane, maybe other recordings of Reed's as a solo artist, or with VU, or covers. In a lot of ways, when I was a kid, listening to the newest Lou Reed record was searching for another song as good as Sweet Jane.
I guess from there, assuming you see something in Sweet Jane in any of its forms, I'd go back to him with the Velvet Underground, maybe listen to Loaded with an eye toward how adaptable and influential those songs are.
Hope this helps. In a lot of ways the value of Lou Reed and the VU is not what they did but what they inspired in others.