Modern Rock Tracks No. 1s - Lou Reed and "What's Good"
Lou Reed visualizes a lot of things that are not good, like mayonnaise soda, in "What's Good," another track off a movie soundtrack that people really seemed to like at the time for some reason
Lou Reed - “What’s Good”
Weeks atop the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart: 3 weeks (Feb. 8 to 22, 1992)
Previous Modern Rock #1 hit: Talking Heads - “Sax and Violins”
Next Modern Rock #1 hit: The Sugarcubes - “Hit”
Billboard Hot 100 chart toppers during this time:
Right Said Fred - “I’m Too Sexy” (3 weeks)
It’s been awhile since I talked about Lou Reed in this section of the Substack music universe. Last year, when I had about 20% of the current readership I have now, I spoke at length about Reed’s tremendous music career, and its culmination in a #1 Modern Rock Tracks hit in 1989 with “Dirty Blvd.” I don’t see much reason to rehash those points, as Reed’s success over decades is documented by music historians and journalists far better at their craft than I’ll ever be in this space.
I’m more fascinated by the 1991 movie “Until the End of the World.” The thing is, I’ve never heard of the movie and never watched it, despite it receiving positive reviews at the time. Its theatrical release clocked in at over 2.5 hours, and apparently there’s a cut of the movie that’s nearly five hours long. I’d love if someone could comment on the movie itself and let me know if it’s worth the watch, or if it at least holds up in the present day.
The movie does sound fascinating, and it stars William Hurt and French actress Solveig Dommartin as individuals who make their way from place to place amid a coming global catastrophe, and the movie is set in a not-too-distant future (from 1991, anyway) where technology advanced enough for people to record their dreams and display them visually for others. I might be oversimplifying things a bit, as I’m cobbling together a synopsis from several sites, but the idea is that this potentially dystopian future is supposed to be happening at the turn of the 21st century.
As such, when director Wim Wenders went about the task of collaborating with musicians for the movie’s soundtrack, he instructed the artists to write songs that imagined life 10 years in the future, with a slightly dystopian lean. This worked to mixed effect with Talking Heads and “Sax and Violins,” a song which topped the charts as a single off the movie’s soundtrack but was, quite frankly, underwhelming in my opinion.
Lou Reed was given the same task, and while it’s nowhere near as good as most of Reed’s prodigious catalog, his single “What’s Good” proved to be a marginally more entertaining and listenable entry on the soundtrack than what Talking Heads produced.
Thankfully, Lou Reed is no stranger to painting a bleak picture out of normal, everyday things. Indeed, in “Dirty Blvd.” he very poetically listed off a number of things about his observations of New York City in the late ‘80s that were off-putting and dystopian in their own way. In “What’s Good,” he effectively took the same motif and painted life from the perspective of being without someone and how everything meshes together into stuff that’s not actually very good.
Life's like a mayonnaise soda
And life's like space without room
And life's like bacon and ice cream
That's what life's like without you
Honestly, I think bacon and ice cream sounds amazing, but yeah, I hear ya Lou: carbonated mayonnaise that tastes like Coca-Cola is not on anyone’s wish list of things to have in life.
There are lots of very direct images relayed in the song, which is primarily Lou Reed reciting the verses rather than inflecting as a singer. Reading Sanskrit to a pony, war without killing, rain that falls up, a lion that barks — all of these things are not necessarily good, and it’s that missing element that Reed tries to dredge up over and over again as a metaphor for life without a particular person.
And kudos to him for trying to get all futuristic:
What good is seeing eye chocolate?
What good's a computerized nose?
And what good was cancer in April?
Why no good, no good at all
Is it seeing-eye chocolate? Is it seeing something that’s called “eye chocolate”? Not sure which, but both are weird turns of phrase. And, in the faraway future of 2001, there must have been computerized noses in Reed’s mind’s eye. He correctly notes that, like cancer, both eye chocolate and noses with computers are no good. No good at all.
At the end of the song, Reed relents just a tiny bit and admits that life actually is good. Of course, even though it’s good, Reed does note that life also is “not fair at all,” so you’re left with a mixed message about the goodness of life at the expense of sometimes being dealt a crappy hand.
Musically, there’s nothing special about this track. Reed does have a terrific voice, but it doesn’t do much to add to a fairly vanilla guitar chord progression. There are no special flourishes that stand out amid the endless parade of verses, and Reed doesn’t seem to inject much passion into the song, which may be the point, but that approach tends to lessen one’s desire to put this song into heavy rotation on a ‘90s playlist.
This would be Reed’s final #1 hit on the MRT chart, and honestly having two tracks top the chart that late into one’s career is a remarkable achievement. I’m all the more impressed with the performance of the movie’s soundtrack on the charts in general. U2’s “Until The End Of The World” track off “Achtung Baby” found a home on the movie’s soundtrack and peaked at #4 on the MRT chart (see below), giving this soundtrack three top-5 MRT singles in the span of a month. And while I don’t think Reed’s contribution will stand the test of time, it’s definitely a noteworthy achievement and speaks to the public’s continued love of his artistry, both then and now.
Rating: 4/10
Chart Check: A look at other notable MRT chart songs from this time period
Social Distortion notches its chart peak with a song that doesn’t quite have the same punch as their earlier hits, Jesus and Mary Chain returns to the charts, and we have the relatively low-charting debuts of two of the ‘90s biggest alternative rock acts.
“Bad Luck” by Social Distortion: Riding the wave of success from their self-titled album in 1990, Social Distortion returned to the MRT chart in 1992 with the first single from their follow-up “Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell.” Even though I’d argue it’s not one of the band’s signature tracks, “Bad Luck” still stands as the band’s highest-charting MRT single, topping out at #2 behind Lou Reed. It’s a fine track.
“Come As You Are” by Nirvana: As a follow-up to their music-industry-breaking MRT chart-topper “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Nirvana released the slower, measured “Come As You Are.” It held its own on the charts, peaking at #3 on the MRT charts behind Lou Reed and topping out at #32 on the Hot 100 in early spring 1992. I’m still surprised other tracks from “Nevermind” stalled out short of the top spot on the MRT chart, but nevertheless, it still signaled a shift in which tracks populated the chart, as you’ll see below.
“Until The End Of The World” by U2: There wasn’t much stopping peak U2 during this period of 1991-1992, as noted by this deep cut from “Achtung Baby” finding new life on the soundtrack of a movie with the same name. “Until The End Of The World” managed a #4 MRT peak, and when the song was at #5 the week prior to its high-water mark, Lou Reed’s “What’s Good” was #1 and Talking Heads’ “Sax and Violins” was #2, about the only time I can recall in this chart’s history where three songs from the same soundtrack were in the top 5. This is all the more interesting considering the U2 track is, by far, the best of the three, yet ultimately placed the lowest on the chart.
“Operation Spirit” by Live: This won’t be the last time we talk about Ed Kowalczyk and the boys from Live, but this is where their story begins. “Operation Spirit,” the first single off the band’s 1991 release “Mental Jewelry,” peaked at #9 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart behind “What’s Good.” This is the first of eight top-10 MRT tracks from the band, and we’ll be talking about three of those songs in greater depth in the coming months.
“Alive” by Pearl Jam: Fascinating to me that both Live and Pearl Jam peak in the same time period with their debut singles. Eddie Vedder’s crew notched a relatively non-descript #18 MRT peak with “Alive,” which also bubbled under the Hot 100 at a very modest #107 ranking on that chart. The album that spawned “Alive,” the all-time alt-rock classic “Ten,” would eventually gain momentum on the Billboard 200 and peak at #2 as an album on that chart late in 1992, but at this point in the timeline, the soundtrack to “Until the End of the World” was just too powerful a force for Seattle grunge to overcome.
“Sugar Ray” by The Jesus and Mary Chain: We’re a few years away from the debut of Mark McGrath and the syrupy sweetness of post-grunge poster children Sugar Ray, but in 1992, JAMC managed to get to #22 with a solid rock banger called “Sugar Ray” off their “Honey’s Dead” album. The band’s first single off the album, “Reverence,” didn’t crack the MRT charts, but their next two singles will both appear in “Chart Check” before too long.
I love this because I was very much a pop only guy during this time so learning about stuff that was not in my radar then is great. Also I am still pretty much a pop only guy haha
I loved Until The End Of The World when it came out - deeply absorbing, emotional, funny, and futuristic. Not sure how it holds up now. The soundtrack is terrific, but I do think What's Good makes a lot more sense on Magic & Loss, Lou Reed's magnificent album about cancer, dying, and death. The soundtrack is also notable for having the only Depeche Mode song I've ever chosen to listen to more than once - love it, in fact. Even a stopped clock...