Modern Rock Tracks No.1s - Lou Reed and "Dirty Blvd."

Lou Reed takes a walk on the wild side of New York City, generating a successful solo album and conquering the modern rock chart

Lou Reed - "Dirty Blvd."

Weeks atop the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart: 4 (2/11/89 - 3/4/89)

Billboard Hot 100 chart toppers during this time:

• Paula Abdul - "Straight Up" (2/11/89 - 2/25/89)

• Debbie Gibson - "Lost In Your Eyes" (3/4/89)

I can’t offer much in the way of a career review of Lou Reed or Velvet Underground. Both the band and that band’s leader are as new to me as most of the bands I’ve reviewed so far, owing more to laziness than my interest in their catalog. As I spent most of my formative years listening to pop standards from the ‘60s through the ‘80s, and most of my teenage and adult years listening to modern rock and pop, I never invested much time in bands which didn’t get radio airplay, even if those bands inspired and changed the course of rock music.

The Velvet Underground is a good example. This band is widely considered one of the most influential bands in rock history, and when I polled friends and acquaintances recently about their favorite tracks, I have to admit I can see why. Tracks like “New Age,” “Sweet Jane,” “Heroin,” and “I’ll Be Your Mirror” are all solid, indicative of a sound that would later inspire countless rock acts both in the U.K. and the U.S. But before this past week, I don’t recall listening to those songs, and they’re never played on commercial radio. It seems a shame, but then, sometimes there’s a special kind of cred to being an underground success.

Lou Reed is no different as a solo act. He released 22 solo albums, of which only one, 1974’s “Sally Can’t Dance,” cracked the top 10 of the Billboard Album Charts. His “Walk On The Wild Side,” the only song of his I knew growing up, peaked at #16 on the Hot 100 in April 1973. (Funky fact: Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch scored a #10 Hot 100 hit in December 1991 with “Wildside,” heavily sampling Reed’s hit but also taking it higher on the charts than the original. People were really feeling the vibration of the Funky Bunch during that time, though.)

“Satellite of Love” bubbled under the Hot 100 in 1973, charting at #119. (I knew about this one more from my love of “MST3K” than anything else, or the end of the “Ron and Fez Show” if you ever caught that one in your local market or on satellite radio.) The 1974 single “Sally Can’t Dance” hit #103 and, well, that’s it. In the world of popular music, Lou Reed never found himself in the mainstream, but it certainly didn’t mean he lacked for popularity. Or talent. Indeed, both Reed and the Velvet Underground would become hall of famers, which would have happened regardless of the success of Reed’s 1989 album “New York,” though its existence certainly helped.

When Reed released “New York” in early 1989, he hadn’t scored a bonafide hit record in awhile. Most of his work in the 1980s went even further below the radar than his stuff in the ‘60s and ‘70s, and it seemed like his career wouldn’t be reinvigorated heading into a new decade. But the advent of the new Modern Rock Tracks chart, along with a gritty look at the state of 1980s New York City in his chart-topping single “Dirty Blvd.,” propelled Reed back to the top of the nascent alternative music scene.

For a kid in the 1980s, unless you lived in or visited New York City, the only frame of reference you had for the realities of life in the Big Apple came from network television or movies. I grew up watching shows like “Night Court,” a terrific comedy about a Manhattan criminal court but one which went to great lengths to take the realities of tough city life and turn them into comedic fodder (one long-running storyline featured lawyer Dan Fielding turning a street bum named Phil into a personal assistant and frequent blood donor). Other shows of the time, like “Cagney and Lacey,” “Hill Street Blues,” or eventually “NYPD Blue,” all depicted New York City or comparable unnamed cities in a relatively harsh light. Even the seminal DC comic “The Watchmen” takes place in an alternative New York City, albeit with the same dirty and crime-ridden aesthetic that colored so much of the world’s view of the city at the time. It’s possible the song doesn’t resonate with me as much now in the 21st century as it did for others back then, but I can at least understand the state of affairs in the city during this time.

All of this is to point out that, in the ‘80s, New York City wasn’t looked upon so much as a glowing testament to America’s success, but rather as a bit of a blight, full of crime, poverty and uncertainty about its future. With this as a backdrop, Reed launched his album reflecting on this time and place, and it resonated with his legions of fans and with music critics at the time. Rolling Stone’s review of the album acknowledged Reed’s “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.” Spin Magazine lauded “New York” as one of the best albums of Reed’s career.

“Dirty Blvd.” in particular dives into the difficult life of a New Yorker named Pedro, who daydreams about flying away from the squalor of his windowless hotel room, ending the life of his abusive father, and leaving Reed’s eponymous dirty boulevard. What’s particularly jarring is the juxtaposition of this poverty-stricken existence with the excesses of a different class of people, the types Pedro can hear attending an “opera at Lincoln Center” who “arrive by limousine.” Reed expertly and poetically moves from this moment of bright lights and spectacle into the harsher reality of kids selling fake roses on the street corner while cops and whores meet to “suck,” in Reed’s words. And perhaps most jarring of all is Reed’s rebuke of society’s attempts to fix the issues, taking the city’s “poor huddled masses” and choosing to “club 'em to death and get it over with and just dump 'em on the boulevard.”

Economic inequality exists the world over, but it’s rarely laid bare in such vivid detail as it is in Reed’s song, and the entire album as a whole goes even deeper into that rabbit hole. Delivered in a monotone with a straightforward guitar riff and a slight dalliance into country rock, Reed succeeds in painting a picture of this time period, forcing his audience to consider the destitute existence that was far too common at the time.

“New York” became Reed’s first and only solo studio album to be certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America, and it would reach #40 on the Billboard 200 album charts in 1989. In the early 1990s, bolstered in large part by that album and collaborations with his former band mates, Reed got back together with Velvet Underground for a European tour, and they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a group in 1996. Reed continued his solo work into the ‘90s and beyond, and it didn't take many years for him to reach the top of the MRT chart again. We'll get around to that track eventually.

Rating: 8/10

Chart notes: In an uncanny coincidence, a Velvet Underground track is covered and released at the same time as “New York,” and it makes an impression on the alternative music scene.

• “Sweet Jane” by Cowboy Junkies: As I mentioned earlier, “Sweet Jane” is considered one of the Velvet Underground’s best songs (at least according to trusted friends, family and acquaintances), but a couple of those people also acknowledged the superlative cover of the song by Cowboy Junkies. It’s hard to argue: Cowboy Junkies capture a haunting, longing vibe, a fresh take on a Velvet Underground standard. It peaked at #5 on the MRT behind “Dirty Blvd.”

• “Dear God” by Midge Ure: Midge Ure, formerly of the bands Slik, Thin Lizzy, Rich Kids, Visage and Ultravox, hit paydirt with U.S. audiences in 1989 with “Dear God,” an upbeat request for God to answer prayers and give hope to the world. I think of it as Ure’s answer to Reed’s observations in “New York,” seeking divine intervention to cure the ills of the world. It peaked at #4 on the MRT behind Reed’s chart topper.

• “Nightmares” by Violent Femmes: To round out a relatively depressing look at humanity on the charts during Lou Reed’s run at the top, I give you this track from the Violent Femmes, a catchy rock ditty about a girl who invades the dreams of the song’s narrator and gives him sleepless nights over the mere possibility of getting together. I’m not sure if it’s a breakup song or a warning to people who consider chasing a partner who will ultimately become a nightmare, but it resonated on alternative radio and peaked at #4 behind “Dirty Blvd.”