1001 Albums Summary

used to own this on vinyl and found it in heavy rotation in my early 20s. the quintessential new york indie cool kid record, it still has a kind of swagger that only a heroin addict in new york could muster all these years later. but i think the soft and tender crooning on perfect day hits differently now, with years of love and adoration and longing behind me now. it’s also much more queer than i recall, even beyond walk on the wild side. lou reed, honorary trans woman?

kinda boring? this era of indie rock was so obsessed with being “important” and “bombastic” and it might have felt that way at the time compared to their more sleazy counterparts but it sort of rings hollow now. at least, the earnestness they present on this record doesn’t resonate with my own earnestness, then or now.

in an alternate universe, this band became the beatles of their era, and i still feel ambivalent about it

i enjoyed this more than i thought i would, but the bar was pretty low.

best enjoyed during a slow walk on a mild spring day on a post-op dose of ocycodone. i’m not sure i understood a single word sung on this whole record.

one of those records that feels like it’s a bunch of country songwriting tropes jammed into a single record but actually is the record that invented the tropes in the first place.