Time Warp Wednesday: Lou Reed's New York

I bought Lou Reed’s New York on cassette on my senior high school class trip to NYC. I guess at the time I thought it was really cool to buy this record in its namesake city. That aside, New York was my Lou Reed gateway. And what a gateway it was. In the liner notes, Lou Reed asks that the album be listened to as though it were a book or a movie. It has been hailed as one of the best albums of the 1980s by Rolling Stone magazine.

Having been released in 1989, as the album approaches its 20th anniversary, the music still holds. For me, “Halloween Parade” is one of the albums best tracks—an incredibly moving and sadly still relevant—song about AIDS. “Dirty Boulevard” and “Romeo and Juliette” are also standout tracks on an album full of great songs.

For me, New York was really a major musical touch point because—like every artist’s gateway album should be—it connected me to more vital music beyond the individual CD.

Dirty Boulevard Live with David Bowie


Romeo and Juliette Live