New York

Last Great American Whale is a lyrical powerhouse of critique. but honestly the whole affair fell flat for me.

Another solid album from Lou Reed. Instrumentally it's a bit more straightforward than some of his others I've heard but lyrically it's really good.

Every time I listen to Lou Reed I want it to be Transformer. This is not Transformer.

Lou Reed albums seem to be a coin toss of getting something completely unexpected and challenging, or getting some of the most accessible rock music available. New York is quite firmly in that latter category and seems to be call back to his earlier rockier work, a la Transformer, after attempting (and failing) at a pop career in the mid 80s.

New York bounces around genres a bit more than you would typically expect from a Lou Reed album. There's a lot of early alt rock, there's Springsteen-esque heartland music, some country rock, some folk, there's even a couple of poetry songs. While I compared it to Transformer earlier, it has less pop and more variety, so I can understand fans of Lou Reed's breadth of work eating this one up.

This was always going to be an uphill battle for me, I didnt like Lou's solo albums from the books despite them objectively being fine, and I feel the same about this. His more challenging works I can dig but I can't get into his more standard works. I'm sure this is a very fine album and I can see why the submitter chose it, but it's not an album I like.

Should it be on the list: No

Top 3 songs: Romeo Had Juliet, Dirty Blvd., There is No Time

Lou Reed is a poet! He is like the John Prine of rock music. The spoken word delivery, and the way he can spin a story. So good!

Favourite songs: Dirty Blvd., Hold On, Romeo Had Juliette, Sick of You, Busload of Faith, Endless Cycle, Last Great American Whale, Strawman, Good Evening Mr. Waldheim, Xmas in February

Least favourite songs: none

5/5

Yeah, I'm sick of you too, Lou Reed. Guy already had way more than his fair share of exposure on the main thing

Nonsense, from a guy i used to kind of rate, but have now heard too much dross from

Love Lou Reed, on the orginal list I gave 5’s to Berlin and Transformer and two of the VU albums. I’d put this down as my 3rd favourite solo album, a great comeback album. Not sure if it’s quite a masterpiece though. But still one I return to frequently

He never lost his touch, did he? He must have been worth a fortune at this point, but it feels like he's still got an ear to the ground and he knows what's going on. I guess some of the attitude might seem a bit dated and offensive now, but he was laying the foundations of progress.

Love the artwork as well! 1989 was the single best year for album art.