Lou Reed – What’s Good (1992)

Magic and Loss is a concept album by Lou Reed, released in 1992. It was his sixteenth album. Magic and Loss was inspired in part by the illnesses and eventual deaths of two close friends: songwriter Doc Pomus, who had given Reed his start in the music business some 25 years earlier, and a woman Reed identifies as “Rita” — popularly assumed to be Rotten Rita, who along with Reed was a familiar figure at Andy Warhol’s Factory in the mid-to-late ’60s. Photos of Pomus and a woman’s face can be seen at the center of the lyric booklet included with the CD release. The single “What’s Good”/”The Room”, released in March, was Reed’s second #1 hit (after “Dirty Blvd.”) on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, occupying the top spot for three weeks. (The 12″ version contained Reed’s reading of “Harry’s Circumcision” and “A Dream”.)