Lou Reed's New York appreciation thread

I do get a kick out of Lou Reed haters. They are amongs the angriest bunch you can find on the internet. I had some fun reading 1 star reviews of his LPs on Amazon.

 

I just discovered Lou's music last year, and New York was the first album that I listened to and it was amazing. I have since listened to all of VUs albums, transformer, Berlin, Coney Island Baby, Blue Mask, and Songs for Drella. I have to say that New York is still his best album. The lyrics to the songs on New York are just freaking amazing, I wish I could write like him. He and Dylan are my two favorite songwriters.

 

Not according to Moe!

 

Not sure if it is his best but I think it is my favorite. Lou Reed is so great when he is 'minimalist'. The guitar sound...

 

Definitely my favorite thing he did other than penning a few tunes for Nico to sing.

 

Apart from the great lyrics, I like the "up front" production style, and I like how you can pick out or perhaps just "feel" a particular earlier influence on a given track. One such influence being "Sweet Jane", slowed down and tossed in the blender ever so slightly.

 

I was a big fan of the Blue Mask/Legendary Hearts/ New Sensations trilogy. Mistrial is my least favorite Lou album so New York was a huge comeback. Topical and wordy (is that a word?) and little long. Not classic Lou to me but still one of his better albums. I loved it when it came out and then I didn't but I appreciate it now.

 

New York is right up there with my favourite Lou Reed albums (Transformer, Berlin, Coney Island Baby, Street Hassle, Ecstacy and the Cale collaboration Songs For Drella).

 

May I suggest "circumlocution"?

 

I personally think it's one of his 3 finest albums (the other two being "Transformer" and "Berlin")
I saw the tour that rolled through Toronto in the summer of 1989, where Lou and his little band played the whole album in it's entirety. "Dion" opened the show and came out during Lou's set to sing on "Dirty Boulevard"
It was a special show and "New York" remains a very special album!
Definitely a moment where critical and popular/commercial acceptance of an album went hand in hand.

 

A great record and incidentally a great sounding LP. Wonderful sounding guitars.

I just love "Good Evening Mr. Waldheim", but anyone not born before 1970 would have no idea what it's about.

 

"My mother said she saw him in Chinatown
but you can't always trust your mother."

from Last Great American Whale . . gets a laugh from me every time. Brilliant album about a city that no longer exists, but was the NYC I knew and loved. Lou at his best.

 

Lou's voice is absolutely not "shot" on Magic and Loss.

 

A few outtakes have been released:
Good Taste - Sally Can't Dance outtake
Crazy Feeling, She's My Best Friend, Coney Island Baby, Downtown Dirt, Leave Me Alone - Coney Island Baby outtakes
America - Growing Up In Public Outtake

 

I love it for all the reasons given, but one key aspect is the guitar sound. I don't know of any other album with such a mean and lean guitar sound. Perhaps the cancellation of cymbals helped.

 

Yeah, and you can tell by MHP's avatar how much he or she hates Reed as well!

 

Set The Twilight Reeling is a very New York centered album too with Egg Cream and NYC Man.

Basically Lou was a magician.

 

You mean that Little Eva song that Grand Funk covered?

 

i can still remember putting this record on(yes record,it was the last record i bought once i discovered cd's for many years).and being blown away by how great it sounded.i am an unabashed lou fan.i really like new york.i do think it is a tad long,and maybe could have lost two or three of the more topical songs.
not in my top five,probably makes top ten lou records.for a true later career masterpiece check out "ecstasy".other's include transformer-berlin-street hassle-coney island baby-the bells.

 

Maybe the song from the next album, Harry's Circumlocution.

 

I think it's his finest album and have done so from the day it came out. I'm genuinely surprised to hear so many others here feel the same way. Just about any discussion of Lou's best album begins and ends with Transformer. As much as I love Transformer, New York is a much more complex and complete body of work for mine.

 

I can't say it's his finest record, not in a career full of potentially finest records.
This coming from a man who thinks he never put out a bad record.

New York was the record that caused people I knew, who couldn't understand why I loved his music ("the guy can't sing!"), to give him his props. Great lyrics, great sound, great songs. And the live show was excellent!

 

I like it a lot but don't play it nearly as much as his other records....I think I burned out on it when it first came out, I think Halloween Parade is a pretty stunning song, part hilarious part harrowing, I always wondered who he meant with 'I was afraid that they meant you?'....

 

One of Lou's best. Some of his best lyrics also. Even my wife who never was a fan likes this record.

 

Mike Rathke was an underrated, and understated foil for Lou. They played great together. He's something of a mystery; it seems he's never even given an interview.