Artist – Album: Lou Reed – New York
Released: 10th
January 1988
Sounds Like: Scary tales of New York
Lou Reed has racked up a substantial amount of albums
throughout his career – no less than twenty-two solo studio albums adding to
the five he managed with The Velvet Underground – and as many of those have
been awful as have been awesome, so getting to grips with his back catalogue
can be tricky. New York isn’t the best of the lot (it’s hard to look past The
Velvet Underground & Nico or Transformer for that honour), but it’s hard to
think of one that has so perfectly encapsulated what his music is about.
The album is fourteen urban poems, tackling problems both
personal and global, and woven together to represent one complete discourse on
life in New York and life in general. Reed may discuss politics, homelessness,
AIDS and life choices in this selection, but he manages to avoid sounding preachy
and the lyrics are so clearly carefully constructed and cleverly crafted that it
is hard to think of a better wordsmith in this soft of territory. All of this
is backed by just a guitar, bass and drums, as well as a few doo-da-doo’s, and
this sparseness helps each track retain it’s clarity, while also maintaining a
solid rock and roll ethos.
The liner notes for the album instruct the listener to sit
through it all in one go, a seemingly unnecessary move in the times of LP’s and
tapes, when skipping a track was as easy as shedding all of that bloody festive
weight by mid-January. But in the world of today, with ipods, ipads and ipids
(wait, is that right?) and your music usually set to shuffle, it’s the norm to
just pick out your favourites and skip the rest. Don’t do that here. Lou
demands it.
Albumaday... rating: 8/10
1. Romeo
Had Juliette – 3:09
2. Halloween
Parade – 3:33
3. Dirty
Blvd. – 3:29
4. Endless
Cycle – 4:01
5. There
Is No Time – 3:45
6. Last
Great American Whale – 3:42
7. Beginning
of a Great Adventure – 4:57
8. Busload
of Faith – 4:50
9. Sick
of You – 3:25
10. Hold
On – 3:24
11. Good
Evening Mr. Waldheim – 4:35
12. Xmas
in February – 2:55
13. Strawman
– 5:54
14. Dime
Store Mystery – 5:01
Listen
to ‘Dirty Boulevard’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7z3TPwOT31g
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