At the beginning there is a bitter parody of the Velvet underground song "Candy Says": "Alan Vega Says" describes how the suicide front man supposedly approaches songwriting, and the cynic of British pop, Luke Haines, doesn't leave good hair on him. Neither is Lou Reed, the New York Dolls or the underground poet Jim Carroll. Or is "New York In The '70s" more about the transfiguration of a pop-cultural scene, a transfiguration that Haines emphasizes in his songs as superficial and striking?
