New York (1989)

Judging from Wikipedia and possibly faulty memory, the conventional wisdom on Lou Reed's 15th solo album is that the lyrics are brilliant and the accompanying music pro forma at best. "Reed's straightforward rock and roll sound on this album was unusual for the time and along with other releases such as Graham Parker's The Mona Lisa's Sister presaged a back-to-basics turn in mainstream rock music," the Wiki article notes, going on, "Conversely, the lyrics through the 14 songs are profuse and carefully woven, making New York Reed's most overtly conceptual album since the early 1970s." Strange comparisons abound—maybe someone with another view needs to chip in some further insights. The article also mentions John Cougar Mellencamp, of all people, scoffing that "it sounds like it was produced by an eighth grader," adding, "but I like it." While quick and dirty roundups of internet opinion don't seem to deride the music as much, they use the word "literary" much more frequently than I am used to seeing in album writeups. It is the continuing, dominating theme of reviews.

And it's basically the opposite of my own reaction, notably on the lyrics. For me, New York suffers a problem that is similar to Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." If you listen carefully to the Springsteen song, it is sensitive and thoughtful on the plight of Vietnam veterans returning to the US. However, if you don't listen carefully, it sounds enough like jingoism that GOP politicians have had to be warned for years with cease-and-desist notices to keep it out of their rallies. In a similar way there are lots of lines and bits in New York that jump out at me as get-off-my-lawn stuff with all the easy carping: hitting with "the statue of bigotry" (which my brain keeps insisting is a mispronunciation, "Statue of Libitree," for some unclear effect, maybe dialect?), reaching for Moby-Dick gravitas on "Last Great American Whale" and finishing it with the old "stick a fork in them" gag, and just generally ripe with insights like "Spittin' in the wind comes back at ya twice as hard." The album closer, "Dime Store Mystery," seems to want to have a pie and coffee discussion about the movie The Last Temptation of Christ. The main track that lost me was "Dirty Blvd.," which was more or less the signifying "hit" of the album and which sounds to me—again on loose listening—like an old person complaining about young people and This City Has Gone to Hell.

This is all on me, of course. I admit it. Lou Reed SAID you're supposed to listen to the hour-long CD in single sittings in sequence order from start to finish "as though it were a book or movie." Unfortunately for me, that's not generally the way I listen to music, even in 1989 when I favored album sets as sequenced over individual songs and mixes. And for better or worse—OK, for worse—I remain resistant or perhaps impervious to most poetry, especially poetry that requires concentration and meditation. I also have to admit my recent returns to New York, listening to it more carefully if not entirely focusing on it like a movie, have indeed disclosed much impressive nuance in these lyrics that I had missed, with Reed raging cogently about all kinds of deeply recognizable modern stupidity. I agree with everything he says pretty much, certainly the broad sentiments, and he turns some really good lines here too. But the name-check of Donald Trump—in a veritable ocean of name-checks on the album that include Morton Downey, Bernard Goetz, Jesse Jackson, and Kurt Waldheim, among a great many others—is a good example of poetry beyond my pay grade: "They ordained the Trumps / and then he got the mumps." Trump was just another garish figure on the New York scene in 1989 but I have no idea what that means.

But my main gripe with this take on New York is the implication that the music is lacking, as Mellencamp alludes. Even Reed, according to the Wikipedia piece, "stated that he required simple music so that it would not distract from his frank lyrics." So just hold it right there. Please, stop. This is not simple music. An eighth-grader could not produce it. The words of New York may or may not be uneven—I still say they are, though generally of a much higher quality than I originally gave credit—but before anything else it is a mighty rock album and it's the deficiencies of the lyrics that are compensated with basically Reed's famous 2 guitars-bass-drums formulation in one of its best versions. Take "Strawman," for example, home of the wince-worthy "spittin' in the wind." It is actually a very sharp critique of the problem of income inequality and the tools used to maintain it. Pretty remarkable stuff for 1989, but I have to force myself to pay attention to pick up on it. Poetic, sure, but on the surface it is also simplistic if not hackneyed. It's the power chords that deliver the song, the explosion of sound that marks all the emotional impact. I sympathize with the sentiments, as who wouldn't, but I feel it viscerally in the music. And "Strawman" is only one of 14 songs that manage versions of this. I agree New York is one of Reed's best albums, specifically rock albums, up there with The Blue Mask, with Rock 'n' Roll Animal, Legendary Hearts, and/or Ecstasy not far behind. I'm just not sure I agree with the reasons people give. It is 95% pure sonic experience for me.