Product Description

After the success of his glam-rockish TRANSFORMER, the expectation was that Lou Reed would plough deeper into commercial territory. As usual, Reed delighted in confounding expectations. BERLIN is a song cycle that uses the decadence of itsnamesake and some Brecht/Weill-esque orchestrations to tella story of two psychically damaged people and their doomed relationship. (Aided by Berlin producer Bob Ezrin, Pink Floyd would attempt a similar feat several years later on THE WALL).
Far from the rock-star poses of TRANSFORMER, BERLIN is lyrically and musically frank and blunt. The arrangementsmove from sophisticated, arch orchestration to naked-sounding acoustic sparseness, but the words are uniformly unflinching in their depiction of violence, addiction, and desperation. Not for the faint of heart, BERLIN is a harrowing journey through the aforementioned tribulations, and one of Reed'smost unusual, demanding, but ultimately rewarding albums.

Track Listing

1. Berlin
2. Lady Day
3. Men Of Good Fortune
4. Caroline Says
5. How Do You Think It Feels
6. Oh Jim
7. Caroline Says (2)
8. Kids
9. Bed
10. Sad Song

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #27798 in Music
• Released on: 1998-03-30
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

The record company hated it .....Just goes to show how wrong you can be
Written a year after the commercial triumph that was "Transformer" ,Berlin released in 1973 , was viewed at the time by "Rolling Stone "magazine as a suicide note for Lou Reeds, career. "Goodbye Lou" they harrumphed smugly . Now Berlin , one of the most misunderstood albums in rock, is placed at number 344 in the magazines top 500.Like many a great album Berlin has undergone a critical renaissance and nowadays the consensus is that Lou Reed was right when he originally stated that Berlin is his masterpiece
Berlin is a harrowing rock opera about Jim and Caroline , a dysfunctional couple spiralling towards oblivion through drugs, violence and seedy sex. After Caroline has her children taken away by the authorities this is the last straw and she commits suicide. Reed has stated that Berlin used the then divided city as a metaphor for human discord and that he wanted to toy with the concept as though it were a play or a novel.
The resulting album is truly startling and memorable and unlike anything Reed had done before using fulsome orchestration , horns and a huge array of session musicians. These included Bob Ezrin on piano and mellotron who also produced , Jack Bruce on bass, Steve Winwood on organ and harmonium and Steve Hunter on electric guitar .Reed only contributed the acoustic guitar and the vocals of course.
Some of the songs on Berlin were re-drafts of songs that had been written and in some cases recorded earlier in Reeds career. "Sad Song" had been a demo for The Velvet Underground while "Caroline Says" is a re-write of "Stephanie Says" from "VU". The album was recorded in both New York and London at a time when Reed's marriage with his first wife was breaking up. Culminating of course in the much related tale of Ezrin locking his kids in a cupboard and telling them their mother had left so he could record their anguished wails for the song "The Kids". Ezrin has refuted this oft repeated tale and it's now accepted that the cries heard on the song are those of Ezrin,s son Joshua pleading to be let back into the house after finding the screen door locked.
When RCA first heard Berlin they were horrified-expecting Transformer 2 this dystopian trawl through others peoples misery and squalor seemed a deliberate act of sabotage. Like most record company executives they had ears made of plasticine. They failed to hear the wretched beauty of it all. Side two of the original vinyl pressing is one the most consummately gorgeous , poignant and empathetic of rock history. "Caroline Says II" , "The Kids" ,"The Bed" and the jaw dropping "Sad Song" produce miserable words set to fulsome melodies , a sleight of hand too subtle for the suits. The record company threatened not to release it at all and then trimmed 14 minutes off it so it went from a double album to a single. ( To be fair , it still works as a complete narrative)
One of the greatest albums of the 1970,s Berlin is also one of those albums like Big Stars "Sister Lovers" or "Engine" by American Music Club that inhabits a darker universe but still retains it's humanity. It is also a cautionary tale ,the sort of thing being played out in the tabloids everyday for the likes of Amy Winehouse and Britney Spears. Much like on it's release it seems not too many are listening .Their loss.

A masterpiece...and the best Lou Reed album
Rating: 10/10

Best tracks: "Caroline Says I", "The Bed", "Lady Day", "How Do You Think it Feels?".

Berlin begins with a melancholy piano amidst the sound of burlesque cabaret....you can just imagine Lou Reed, shrouded in darkness, whiskey at his side, eyes closed, playing to a bar of lonely, romantic lost souls, dreaming of the times when "it was very nice....oh honey, it was paradise....", staring into their drinks....yeah, this isn't a happy album as such, but it is absolutely enthralling from start to finish, and by the time the fantastically moody "Lady Day" stalks and stomps into earshot, this listener's taken away to a dark, melodramatic world complete with the best music of Reed's career, a career which almost pronounced dead at the time of this album.

Some critics were truly venomous in their dismissal of Berlin, while many fans were horrified upon hearing the sound of Transformer blown to bits in a nightmarish whirlwind of unremittingly sour, bleak lyrics and uncomfortable subject matter. Broken hearts, drug addiction, shattered families, infidelity, domestic violence and suicide all combine to create what's often referred to as The Most Depressing Album Ever Made. To be honest, the album's often too breathtakingly ingenious to depress, though sometimes it's tough stuff; especially near the end.

This is one of the most astonishingly produced albums ever, turning a conceptual work into a tour de force of emotion, sweep and grandeur. The most incredible example of this comes in the form of "Caroline Says I", which in its own weird way, is one of the great lost hits of modern pop and rock music; strings soar, drums tumble, heavenly backing vocals reach for the skies, and the chorus is honestly one of the most euphoric things I've ever heard. The last minute is just terrific, superbly orchestrated, absolutely miraculous and truly gripping. Forget "Perfect Day" and "Walk on the Wild Side", this is the greatest Lou Reed rush of them all, and "Just like poison in a vial, she was sometimes very vile" is a great lyric. At the very least it should have been a single, a hit single at that; the only actual song to promote the album was "How Do You Think it Feels?", which is only really dark in the lyrical sense. Musically, it actually rocks, as does "Oh Jim" , which features a powerful, stark finale.

Still, that`s only Side One. Side Two is where it really gets dark. "Caroline Says II" is where the descent begins, and by the time we've reached "The Kids", with its infamous use of screaming children (not to mention the rumour that said kids were provoked into crying by erroneously being told that their mother wasn't ever coming back home), we're in hell. Then there's "The Bed", which is this album's masterpiece, even more so than "Caroline Says I"; unflinchingly direct in its lyrics, which sometimes make me flinch upon listening, the music is some of the most haunting I have ever heard, not to mention some of the most beautiful. The "and this is the place..." section sends shivers down my spine, not to mention the truly ghostly "I never would have started if I'd know that it's end this way..." passage. Once listened to, never forgotten. "Sad Song" allows some light back into proceedings, yet is still uncompromisingly brutal with its lyrics.

Despite the vitriol it provoked on release, Berlin is now rightfully regarded as a classic album; it's easily the best Lou Reed album, though for those who prefer something lighter in tone, I heartily recommend the glorious Coney Island Baby....

Drowning In Berlin
I first heard this album at art college while drawing a model who had brought it to listen to. The kids wailing on `The Kids' provoked some expressions of disbelief from the students and when they heard Lou sing, "This is the place where she cut her wrists," on `The Bed' people could hardly believe their ears. I found the album compelling and when I eventually I bought it I played it continually, sometimes early in the morning which must have been popular with my neighbours. However, listening to it now I think it is rather overrated, especially considering that Lou is touring the album in 2007. Why not `New York' which is a far more consistent album than `Berlin'? It deserves a little more recognition than it received on its release, but not much. The songs on this album are average at best and `Caroline Says 1' is a very bad song. "Caroline says she can't help but be mean." Ouch! "Or cruel, or oh so it seems." Really! "Just like poison in a vial, hey she was often very vile." Phew, that stinks! Then, right at the end, after one rhyming couplet after another he finishes with `fool' clashing with `Queen'. Scrape your fingernails down a blackboard, why don't you? And what on Earth is that horrible noise at the start of the first song? It sounds like a drunken idiot wailing through a cheap PA. The production has some very dubious and dated orchestral arrangements. This album has an eerie atmosphere, especially on `The Bed', but it is not a masterpiece.