With NEW YORK late NYC genius LOU REED made one of his greatest albums ever. His fifteenth LP appeared on 10 January 1989 and the critics, and fans of course, praised this remarkable record, rightly so, euphorically.
A 3CD/DVD/2LPs deluxe edition is out now. It features a 2020 remaster, and includes
a live version of the entire album on CD assembled from various performances on Lou Reed’s 1989 tour. The second CD features the non-album track ‘The Room’, the solo acoustic rendition of ‘Busload of Faith’ and the single version of ‘Romeo Had Juliette’, as
well as ‘Work Tape’ or ‘Rough Mixes’ of tracks from the album. A couple of encores from
an August 1989 performance at The Mosque in Richmond, Virginia complete this disc.
Pitchfork: “A new reissue highlights the ongoing relevance of Lou Reed’s opus about his hometown in the era of AIDS and Reaganism, a protest album unlike any other.”
Going back in sonic history looking for memorable albums…
9 January 2019
Artist: LOU REED
Album: NEW YORK – his 15th solo LP
Released: 10 January 1989 – 30 years ago
ROLLING STONE wrote: “In Reed’s apocalyptic vision of the world’s capital as a Boschean inferno, the city’s inhabitants have been shocked into incomprehension by homelessness, poverty, AIDS, child abuse, official corruption, racial violence and drugs. At a time when the city’s own newspapers routinely evoke Calcutta and Bedlam to describe the Big Apple’s rotting condition, Reed’s message, powered by a ferocious four-piece band, slams home with the urgency of tomorrow morning’s headlines… The fourteen songs on New York are fierce, poetic journalism, a reportage of surreal horror in which the unyielding force of actual circumstances continually threatens to overwhelm the ordering power of art. Reed, of course, is no stranger
to unhinging scenes of squalor. On his inestimably influential early albums with the Velvet Underground and through much of his solo work in the Seventies, Reed cast a cold eye on virtually every manner of human excess.”
Turn Up The Volume! says: The way Lou Reed dissects and analyzes the troubled
state of his beloved New York City is baffling and encapsulated in a stunning rock
and roll soundtrack. An exceptional magnum opus realized at a moment that Reed‘s
career was fading away.
Three Top Tracks: Romeo Had Juliette / Dirty Boulevard / There Is no Time