Lou Reed Eighties Albums Poll

blue mask in a romp.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bym6jXQyKhE&feature=related

i really liked new sensations at the time. it was the first lou album i bought at the time it came out. but i haven't played it in a gazillion years. i play blue mask at least once a year.

always thought new york was a snooze. i realize people love it. saw that tour where he did the whole thing in one set. zzzzzzzzzz. but the feelies opened the show so the night wasn't as total loss. they were awesome.

NS is fantastic -- like I've said before, def. in my top ten of awesome albums with terrible production. The keepers: "I Love You, Suzanne," the title track, "Doin' The Things That We Want To," "Endlessly Jealous," "Fly Into the Sun, "What Becomes a Legend Most," "My Friend George." Song for song it's as good as TBM.

god DAMN he looked like a sleestak during the Mistrial era.

new york

new york was my intro to the man, so that one has nostalgic value. even though i don't love it quite as much as i did when i was a kid, it still has some killer stuff. guess it's a toss up betw. NY and Blue Mask.

NY's second side is really blah.

growing up in public has some great stuff on it. the "fonfara" years. it deserves a vote just for the power of positive drinking.

Blue Mask, easy, though I used to like Legendary Hearts, too. The rest was increasingly snoozeworthy, iirc. Remember New Sensations being bland but bearable. Not sure I've ever even heard Growing Up In Public tbh. Nobody liked it much then, right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ5xKQdqZ0Y
this Night With Lou Reed video is prob. my fave Lou Reed 80s thing these days ... I have an audio rip of it that is fab. Great band, good song selection, Andy Warhol in the audience.

Blue Mask > New York > New Sensations > Legendary Hearts > Mistrial > Growing Up In Public. I wonder if Mistrial isn't better than it seemed at the time, but I don't wonder hard enough to find out. Alfred's right about New Sensations having some pretty high quality stuff on it; "My Red Joystick" is an embarrassment but the title track is swell & the band plays beautifully on it. New York might be better than The Blue Mask if not for "Good Morning Mr. Waldheim," one of the most confused political statements ever made. But the Blue Mask has Lou's best guitar work of the decade easy. He sounds like he gives a shit. I don't even believe him when he starts proposing himself as some specially bonded student of Schwartz's, but that's ok. The conceit works and the mood is seductive.

it deserves a vote just for the power of positive drinking.

xpost: throwing up in public (?)

not sure yet about my vote, but "betrayed" is one of my fave solo Lou tunes

"Good Morning Mr. Waldheim," one of the most confused political statements ever made.
haha, yes. wtf is that song trying to say?
and yeah, "Betrayed" is a high point on Legendary Hearts ... Might prefer the Live In Italy version though, which has a great Quine-does-country solo.

haha, yes. wtf is that song trying to say?

"I am old and cranky, and I disagree with everybody"

man I still have resentment toward the high price of Live in Italy. I wanted to buy it so bad. Couldn't afford it, and on those few times when I had enough money, couldn't pull the trigger on one live Lou album vs. one new Gun Club & a couple of used LPs.

There's that moment in "New Sensations" after the first chorus, when that complex little hook rotates back around: the guitar, cushioned by bass. It's just as effective as anything Lou did with Quine.

New York is classic if only for Lou's listening directions: "This album should be listened to in one sitting, like a book or a movie." Lou reads books in one sitting.

I've read Henry James in one sitting, f you.

One of the novellas?

Blue Mask, of course.

But, Legendary Hearts has "The Last Shot" which contains one of the most immortal Lou lyrics ever: "I shot a vein in my neck and coughed up a quaalude"

Portrait of a Lady in one sitting = portrait of a sore ass

Well, it's "Blue Mask", of course. But gotta speak up for "Growing Up In Public", which is pretty much a (New York Jewish) comedy album as far as I'm concerned: "Take No Prisoners" is Lenny Bruce, this one is Woody Allen.

^^like that analogy.
Growing up in Public was the first I got from the library. Raised eyebrows on first listen as I only knew Reed through my mom's copy of Berlin. The deadpan "with your pants down" of the title track sometimes pops into my head now and then when I see people making fools of themselves (growing up, errr) in reality tv-shows.

And yes, "The Pow-pow-pow-pow-power of Positive Drinking" is awesome (some people ruin their drinks with ice/and then they, they ask you for advice)

He never sound more NY

"You have to be real careful where you sit down in a baaaaawwwr these days"

I see people making fools of themselves (growing up, errr) in reality tv-shows

"Smiles, they all smile on tv
The quizmaster with his withered crones
The talkshow hosting movie stars, the politician licking feet
The mugger, the rapist, the arsonist lover
All smile out from the news, at one time or another
Those smiles, those garish sickly smiles"

I haven't GUIP besides the tunes in the box set ("Think It Over" and "Teach the Gifted Children"), and they sound quishy and underproduced – the very definition of "transitional."

Musically it's kind of awful but somehow charming

Blue Mask edges out New York, both well ahead of the rest of the pack. GUIP coulda been a contender but suffers from excessive supple fretless bass wankery even more than the other things here.

Terrific:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXzNlHXKAuM

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

my favorite lou solo era

Blue Mask
New Sensations
Legendary Hearts
New York

GUIP
Mistrial

New Sensations fuckin rules btw

gotta say the Lou concert I saw in 84 playing New Sensations w/Quine was a rip-snorter. album-wise I still prefer his 70s tho.

I gotta say, m coleman, reading your blurbs in the RS Guide fifteen or so years ago -- the respect you always showed Lou and the decision to take his silliness seriously -- were a huge influence on me.

thanks! last winter I went to hear Lou speak about the velvets @ the NY public library - boy he is still mr. cantankerous. glad I never interviewed him.

New Sensations ftw

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Hm.

Repurposing this thread for a Lou Reed in the 1980s POX:

go!

still can't get over how the guy that made No Money Down is the same guy that made Drella 4 years after.

jeez, some ppl like to try diff shit.

"The Pow-pow-pow-pow-power of Positive Drinking" is awesome

Ha, my dad usta REALLY get annoyed by rock phrasing, like Sinatra. He'd hear this and say, "What's it mean, powpowpow?" and stalk away.