As we all know, the idealistic sixties died in the selfish eighties.The spirit of “All You Need Is Love” was cooed away by the spirit of “Material Girl.” In the eighties, the spirit of making money was wild upon the land. Big takeover companies took over businesses and fired all the employees to raise the stock price. Big real estate companies gouged local governments for subsidies, and mom and pop real estate companies did coop conversions in which some people got rich and other people got thrown onto the street. All of this had the blessing of the ideology of the market, the belief that knowing what the market will bear is better than common sense, human feeling, self-sacrifice, generosity, or any other idea or emotion–and this is the idea that rules our country even now, long after its massive discrediting. In 1989, Lou Reed, a rebel and a romantic and a true artist, released an album called New York, and in its fourteen songs, there is such a sneering outrage against the ugly, selfish attitudes of the times. It was such an interesting statement from Reed, whose best work is mostly about freedom–not only the freedom to explore sex or drugs or–that great euphemism, alternative lifestyles–but the freedom to be oneself, whatever that means (“Doing the Things That We Want To,” “New Sensations,” “NYC Man.” But people didn’t have the freedom to take advantage of one another, to lie or steal or exploit, no matter how cleverly you can spin your rationale. “Somewhere a landlord is laughing until he wets his pants,” Reed wrote. New York was a great document from a great artist. Thanks, Luu.
