The Best Record of 1989: Day 31
#21 Lou Reed, New York vs. #108 Tone Lōc, Lōc-ed After Dark
Good morning!
Today we’re taking a look at records from Lou Reed and Tone Loc.
Note: As many of you know, I recently wrote about a Best Record of 1989 challenge and noted that I'd be occasionally writing some of these up.
I've started doing some quick hits of each matchup and posting them directly to the page. Some will be longer, some won’t, and some might just be a handful of sentences. There'll probably definitely be some typos.
Check 'em out and let me know your thoughts! Chin wags & hot takes welcome! Sharing and restacks are always appreciated.
KA—
By the time the late 80s rolled around, Lou Reed was on something of a downswing- I say this not with the backing of any empirical information, but rather the prevailing mindset of people in my circle and what I was hearing on the radio/MTV.
The Velvet Underground still carried emeritus status -and some people were into their records because that's just what you were supposed to have in the crate. If your parents had a copy? That telegraphed a sense of coolness you couldn't buy. But by 89, VU was something from the past. It would eventually become my fave record of his, but New Sensations (great!) had been followed with Mistrial (not so much).
Say what you will about Reed, but he's certainly willing to transform himself and his style. If Mistrial was an attempt at creating a synthetic version, New York was about a return to basics--and nothing says "return to basics" like a record about your hometown.
New York in the 1980s was beset by socioeconomic ills—AIDs, crack, and more. The big apple was rotting, and Reed was right under the tree. He did the only thing he could—he wrote some of the best songs of his career.
It's worth noting the irony that the same person who sang "Sister Ray" and "I'm Waiting for the Man" is penning polemics about the scourge of drugs. But times change, and people do, too.
The songs on New York are over-indexed on pop/rock. Reed has some things on his mind, and 1989 was not the time for a field trip into Metal Machine Music territory or whatever esoteric pursuits he might've wanted to follow. Instead, we get one of the most straightforward records in the catalog.
"There is no Time is a ripper" (that's a sentence I never thought I'd type about a Reed song), and plenty of tracks come as close as Reed's gonna get to pop as well. "Dirty Blvd." is the story of a kid growing up in a hotel and wound up hitting #1 on the Billboard Modern Rock charts…and that might not even be the 2nd or 3rd best track on the record.
I'm mindful that many people rank Reed higher than they might otherwise because of his-- and VU's--status in the rock canon. Fair enough, but fair play to Reed- when he's on, he's on, and this is a helluva record.
Reed might have once been down, but he was never out—and neither was the city (or people) he sang about.
Whoever nominated Tone Loc's Loc-ed After Dark must either have A: Been waxing nostalgic, or B: just returned from a cruise.
I vote for B since artists like Tone Loc always find a second life on such excursions. Your mom, dad, (or grandparents!) relive the wild parts of their youth while also wearing wristbands, entitling them to an endless buffet and bottomless drinks. No house party here. No pre-planning on which backyard fence to jump if need be. It's a very curated sort of hedonism.
While Reed was writing about cities falling apart, Loc was penning tracks about clothes coming off and any other sort of tawdry thing you can imagine. Pop culture was full of big hair and small bikinis. Some of the biggest stars weren't even people—they were dogs used to sell beer…and it worked.
This being 1989, outsized guitar riffs weren't entirely out of style- indeed, they were just what many of us were still clamoring for, and a well-placed Van Halen riff propping up verses easy to sing along to when drunk made for a winning recipe, which makes the case for option B. Time sweetens all memories, and we remember the good parts of the parties, not the mornings after or the gouges on one 's leg that came from picking the wrong fence. Cruise lines, too, have figured this out, and these have become a cash grab, with just about any genre you want available on the high seas.
With the benefit of hindsight, Loc-ed After Dark is derivative. He's got a unique voice...until you realize that so did the DOC (note: I'm not calling either out for WHY their voices are the way they are- only noting the similarities).
His flow is fine…until you remember that Rakim exists.
Ditto Slick Rick when it comes to the writing itself. Even the cover art pips Donald Byrd's New Perspective album.
And there's a bit of trans and/or homophobia worked in on "Funky Cold Medina,” because, of course, there is. I wonder if Nana and Papa will still sing along with that line on the main deck?
So what's good about this record? For one, the sampling. The Dust Brothers are on the boards and brought a big-ass crate into the studio. "Funky Cold Medina" alone pulls from no less than six tracks. "Cutting Rhythms," seven. And for the latter, the roster ranges from Steely Dan to Juice to Wings (!). Anytime you're surprised and delighted by a sample is a good thing, and it's a notch in the win column for Loc-ed After Dark, but it's not enough to overcome the dated way the album sounds. It's enough to make me want to miss my Joe Camel t-shirts.
Bottom Line: Both records represent the bipolar nature of 1989 well. It was truly a "best of times, worst of times" situation, and what side you were on depended on a lot of factors you likely had no control over. One record telegraphs that you were cool in a hipster sorta way in '89, while the other says you were a lout. And for a lot of us, given how blurred those lines got, we were both. That said, one record holds up well in 2025, while the other feels like I'm watching a beer ad while clipping Marlboro Miles.
My vote: Start spreading the news; My vote and my bracket pick are going to Lou Reed's New York.
Any thoughts on either of these records? Agree/disagree with my takes? Which one of these would you vote for? Sound off in the comments!
Check out the full bracket here.
Info on the tourney, voting, and more is here.
As always, thanks for being here.
KA—
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