While spending a day off with my daughter, who's ill, I'm revisiting some old favorites. This album ranks right up there with my "in your living room" faves. No slick production. This album was just recorded "as is", and has some great performances. Regardless of what you may think of Lou, this album just sounds immediate and alive, almost as if they made it up on the spot. Love it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2006-01-12 23:41 by bassplayer617.

absolutely BRILLIANT BRILLIANT BRILLIANT.
My favourite non-stones rock album of all time.

thanks for mentioning it, bassplayer.

great album!.....maybe overlooked?.....strong songwriting all the way through

fantastic pure album, in my top ten of other artist´s CDs.

I am a Huge Mega Lou Reed fan. But NY album should be read not heard. To me it is so much about the words, they are so good and over powering that these aren't really songs to me. They're essays. I never listen to it and I listen to every Lou album to this day.

"...no longer shall you trudge 'cross my peaceful mind."

yeah it's great! Lou is cool.

Yeah, this is really good.

I have a cool memory of this. A friend of mine was really good friends with Mike Rathke's wife. When the album came out, we went over to Mike's house in a suburb of Boston (I think there was only like 6 of us there) and he played it for us, like a little record release party. He was a really nice guy. He came to my going away party when I moved to LA.

I forgot how much I liked this album too, glad you mentioned it, I'll have to find my copy.

Wasn't looking too good, but I was feeling real well.

A top 5 Lou Reed (solo) album. Not scary genius Lou, but a real no BS record. The best thing he had done since Street Hassle and better than everything he's done since.

ChelseaDrugstore Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
I listen to every Lou album
> to this day.

Metal Machine Music even?

New York may be my favorite Lou Reed album (Next to MMM, of course!)

Ross

You know what's funny, seeing how everyone is writing that this might be their favorite Lou Reed record.

I don't remember if it was this record or the next one they did, but they were touring for it, and the audience wasn't into the new stuff so much and Lou was getting pissed. My friend went to the show and at one point Lou was playing a new one, and after it ended, someone on the crowd shouted something like "play rock and roll", and Lou said something like "F you, this is MY rock and roll".

It's funny the way the majority of fans don't want their artists to ever change, sometimes change can be good, as is the case with New York.

Wasn't looking too good, but I was feeling real well.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2006-05-08 20:40 by CindyC.

I've pretty much all of Lou Reed's albums and my favourites are this one and "Berlin"

Also have a copy of "New York" autographed by the great man himself.

Gazza Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Also have a copy of "New York" autographed by the
> great man himself.


VERY COOL!

I love the vocals on Cool It Down off VU's Loaded. Plus that little 20 second guitar between Who Loves the Sun and Sweet Jane, LOVE THAT! I always play that over and over and over.

Wasn't looking too good, but I was feeling real well.

Gazza Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've pretty much all of Lou Reed's albums and my
> favourites are this one and "Berlin"
>
> Also have a copy of "New York" autographed by the
> great man himself.

Nice.
I actually met Lou when I was 17 and had him sign a record. He was quite nice to me - all of my other friends who have met him have had awful experiences with the man, but he was great to me.

Busload Of Faith - great title, great song - as well as all the others on
that album.

CindyC Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Plus that little 20 second guitar between Who
> Loves the Sun and Sweet Jane, LOVE THAT! I
> always play that over and over and over.

How do you play it? I've never been able to figure it out.

This and Transformer are probably the lou reed albums that appeal most to casual fans. And they are very good. Though lou's amazingly bad clothes and haircut on the cover of New York trouble me. But my favorites are Berlin and The Blue Mask.

The music does sound like a jam... conversely lou says he did several drafts of the words, and he must have. But he did become a more technically skilled guitar player at this time, too -- he must have really been working hard on all fronts.

Oh no, sorry. I should have written that differently. I meant I listen to it over and over. I don't play the guitar. Sorry.

Isn't it great though? I wish it was longer.

Wasn't looking too good, but I was feeling real well.

Yeah, I love it... it's like a little bird twittering. Then the strumming in the background is all texture -- I can't hear the notes, so I don't know what the chords are. I wish they still recorded acoustic guitars like that. On a CD, is this piece part of track 1 or track 2? I always think of it as the intro to "Sweet Jane."

This album,rocks everywhere,love Lo Reed, take no prisor....is a live album.....lou was his time ahead...stupid man.

I'm pretty sure it's track two.

I know what you mean about the acoustic guitars. You don't really hear stuff like that anymore. Actually, I can't really think of anything else that even sounds like it. I'm sure it's used, but probably hidden in a song so you don't notice it.



Wasn't looking too good, but I was feeling real well.

Funny, I never liked Lou Reed.
But...I love this album.
It is the only one of his that I have.

"Stupid Man" -- great song. Music written by nils lofgren, an unusual collaboration. I really like that album, The Bells.

"The Bells"...lol. Another one of those Lou albums that were berely noticed. Is that the one with "Families" on it? Love that tune.
There are some like "Mistrial" or "Growing up in Public" that were barely registered.
"Berlin", "Blue Mask", "Street Hassle" are well known. But "Coney Island Baby" and "Rock'n Roll heart" are soem of his best post-VU stuff.

"...no longer shall you trudge 'cross my peaceful mind."

<But NY album should be read not heard.>

Should be read and heard. The combination lyrics/music is simply from a genius mind! This is one of my top 5 favourite albums - great! The sound is also perfect, the production reminds me a lot of Keith and The Winos, especially the guitar and drum sound. Any views on that?

I hate to disagree, but I really dislike New York and I am a complete Lou nut.
As someone else mentioned its good writing, but from the man who wrote Sweet Jane and Waiting for the man, 2 of the greatest rock songs ever written, its not my type of rock n roll.
I also don't like the eighties production sound.
By the way I even play guitar in a Velvet Underground cover band
on www.sweetnuthin.com you can download some MP3's of me playing some Lou classics.
My favourite Lou records are Blue Mask,Coney Island Baby,but also i'm not to be trusted I even like Sally Cant Dance!

Love New York and the other albums from around that time (Songs For Drella and Magic And Loss). Bit of a dip with Ectasy and Set The Twilight Reeling.

Not listened to any of his stuff since but have The Raven and recent live album buried in some unplayed stuff.

Humanriff, we seem to see Lou the same way. The only reason I don't mention liking "Sally Can't Dance" is because Lou can not remember recording the album. But Coney Isaln has got to be one of the most....delightful (I'm sorry, I can not think of a less gay word)albums ever.

"...no longer shall you trudge 'cross my peaceful mind."

The last truly great Lou Reed album. Hard to believe it's over 15 years old.

An absolute classic by anyone's standards.

Lyrically, one of the very best albums ever written.

I am so pleasantly surprised that so many of you like Coney Island Baby.
Probably my second favorite solo Lou album. The title track is my favorite Lou song, even though it's about his tranny meth-addicted "girlfriend" Rachel (really a Puerto Rican hustler named Tommy).
I'm a sucker for those "talking at the beginning" songs: "By The Time I Get To Phoenix"-Isaac Hayes, "Facts Of Life/He'll Be There" - Bobby Womack. Just love the whole form. To hear Lou do it (and earnestly, to boot) is just too much. It's funny because on Street Hassle, he had Bruce do the spoken part because he thought he would sound like he was being sarcastic and not earnest enough. On Coney he sounds sincere.
He really must've loved that she-male.
Said it before, I'll asy it again: God bless Lou Reed.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2006-01-13 18:11 by cosmoprim.