New York

On "New York" Lou Reed strips his sound down to two guitars, bass, and drums and uses that bare frame to file a furious dispatch on the city and country falling apart around him.

"Dirty Blvd." tells you exactly what he's after: a kid named Pedro living in a room with ten children and a father who beats him, set to a hook so lean it sounds like it was cut in a single take. Reed names names elsewhere — "Good Evening Mr. Waldheim" torches a former UN chief and Jesse Jackson in the same breath, refusing the comfort of a tidy target. Nothing here is decorated; the guitars stay dry and conversational so the words carry the weight, which is the whole gamble. He'd been written off as a spent talker of a singer, and this is the record that proved the talk could still draw blood.