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Eternally perverse, Reed responded to having a pop hit with
Transformer by making a massive bummer of an album, built around
reworked versions of a couple of older songs. Berlin is
psychologically grueling and unremittingly dark (scariest moment: "The
Kids," which ends with a very long tape of children screaming in terror),
but the savage contrasts of its sound have gotten more impressive with
time. The big production flourishes hit like a hangover, Reed's voice
sounds like he's trying to stave off emotional involvement with his lyrics
because it would hurt too much, and the multi-layered textures of "Oh Jim"
surge and recede like details of a nightmare. The album takes strength to
hear, and rewards it. --Douglas Wolk
What the Critics Say:
Berlin was
a Number 7 hit at the time of its release, but critically reviled, partly
because it contained lush upbeat orchestration - which equalled sell-out -
and partly because it was emotionally cold. At times the first half toys
with following-up Transformer's upbeat concerns but the general thrust is
unrelenting fly-on-the-wall urban hell. Typical is Caroline Says II, which
contrasts a musical arrangement bordering on schmaltz with Reed's monotone
documenting Caroline's brutal beatings by her boyfriend and ridicule from
her friends. Elsewhere there is drug addiction, suicide and children
forcibly taken into care, all of which makes for uneasy listening but adds
up to one of Reed's finest albums. Next was the turgid Sally Can't Dance.
--Anthony Thornton -- © 1998 Emap Consumer Magazines Limited. For
personal use only. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable
edition of this title.
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Customer Comments
Average Customer Review:
 Number of Reviews: 14
 a consummation devoutly to
be wished
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Reviewer: A music fan
from Seattle October 12,
1999
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| The liner notes for the "Velvet
Underground & Nico" quote a review of an early Velvet
Underground performance. The group it seems "[evoked] the decadence
of Berlin in the 30's". Those of us familiar with Hemingway's "The
Sun Also Rises", his "A Movable Feast", and Jack Kerouac's "On the
Road" will quickly see what Lou Reed is up to here. Kerouac makes it
plain that his "beat generation" is the descendent of Hemingway's
"lost generation" (after Gertrude Stein)--"beat" in the sense of
"beatific", maybe (later), in the sense of "beaten", certainly. But
this is silly: Hemingway called his first novel "The Sun Also Rises"
(it rises and sets and rises and sets) to make his point that, as he
put in "A Movable Feast": "every generation is lost by something".
Lou Reed's "Berlin" makes the same point, at a time when it needed
restating: just beneath the beatific veneer of post-sixties "peace
and love" floundered another decadent "Berlin in the 30's", in New
York, in London, elsewhere. The lush orchestration derided above and
below is essential to convey that sense of decadence. (There exists
an anti-art, anti-intellectual backlash that condemns the "concept
album" out of hand as "over-reaching", "pretentious", etc. Oh, if
all the world were as petty, vacuous, and unimaginative as we, its
exponents seem to say. Let's ignore them.)
Also recommended: "The Blue Mask"/"Legendary Hearts"/"New
Sensations" trilogy and, for musicians "Pentatonic Scales for the
Jazz Rock Keyboardist" by Jeff Burns
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| 1 people found
this review helpful. 0 did not. |
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No one "gets" Berlin
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Reviewer: Larry
Bottorff (mrprenzl@midusa.net) from Moundridge, Kansas
October 12, 1999
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Many have tried to capture the vibe
post-war/pre-unification Berlin put off. The glitter rock trio of
Reed, Bowie, and Eno bottled the fog about as well as anyone in the
'70. But Reed's "Berlin" is something like Karl May's Wild West
America. May was a 19th-century German author who wrote Western
novels without ever having set foot in America. He's still a
smashing success in German-speaking lands and the definitive source
of cowboys and indians imagery for Germans. Likewise, Reed probably
never did a full immersion into West Berlin, never learned German,
never ventured beyond the Ku'damm, never really went "underground"
into the infamous Kreuzberg 36/61 quartiers which he purports to
document. Yet, he decorated his basic New York motifs with Berlin
symbols well enough to make a believable "documentary" album. West
Berlin in the '70's and '80's was a bleak, desperate place. It had
New York or London's push-and-shove trendiness, Beirut's
shatteredness, and East Germany's empty heart. In Berlin cruelty was
commonplace, but a loving, codependent, rarely violent cruelty.
Reed's "Berlin" hits that nail right on the head. I might say no one
truly "gets" Berlin, but not for lack or effort or talent. The vibe
was just too big.
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 Reed's "concept" has many
holes, and a few memorable moments
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Reviewer:
spazz@concentric.net from Oak Ridge TN
May 10, 1999
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So Lou Reed didn't wanna give the people
what they wanted and followed up the schmaltzy Transformer with this
overrated, overbearing piece of work. The concept at best is patchy,
congealing more on the second half than the first. Once again Lou
dips into his VU leftovers and turns "Stephanie Says" into "Caroline
Says II"...for my money the original VU tune was much better, oh
well. Yes, this whole mess is at first listen a really depressing
work. However, repeated listenings (if it does indeed invite such a
thing) only seem to wear down the listener's patience. The funny
thing about it is it's not necessarily the lyrics which add the most
gloom - it's the music. Basically a string and brass/reed section
playing what sounds like Cheerful Tunes on Barbiturates. Yes, "The
Kids" will turn your stomach the first time around, but even it gets
silly when you really think about it. "The Bed" and all of its
details about suicide via razor blades goes for the throat as
well...it probably wins the award for Most Depressing Song on
Berlin. Finally, the whole thing closes with "Sad Song" which should
have been called "I'm Bored", for Lou sounds as if he's about to
fall out of the recording booth from ennui (pun intended).
Again...this was a terrific VU song..a real pretty number, but here
Lou has just turned it into trash. Buy this album only if you intend
to break it out for unsuspecting friends whom you want to torture
through audio melancholia.
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| 0 people found
this review helpful. 1 did not. |
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definitive solo work of a
master.
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Reviewer: A music fan
from san jose,california April 1, 1999
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Yet another example of the masses
rejecting anything that doesn't sugarcoat things. This album is not
cold, it's objective. Lou Reed presents the story, he doesn't judge
it. The crushing lines in caroline says 2 "Caroline says as she gets
up from the floor,You can hit me all you want to, but I dont love
you anymore" illustrates the characters of this play
perfectly,detached and hopeless. Many don't like believing these
people exist. But reed has never been afraid to confront his
listeners with such true depictions of the human condition. This
album is also more approprietly produced than the critically
acclaimed "transformer". "BERLIN" Belong behind only "blood on the
tracks" as the best album of the 70's.
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Lou's Masterpiece
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Reviewer: vra@webtv.net
(Visual Radio's Joe Viglione) from Boston, Mass.
March 31, 1999
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"Berlin" by Lou Reed, was touted as"a
film for the ear." Indeed it is. This is a soundtrack beggingto be
put to celluloid...orchestrated folk/grunge...the backing by halfof
Blind Faith (Jack Bruce and Steve Winwood - Bruce was theuncredited
bassist on the BlindFaith album), with Aynsley Dunbarand the late BJ
Wilson (Procul Harum) on drums, it is Lou at hisdarkest
since...Sister Ray andWhite Light/White Heat.I can ramble on for
well over 1000words on this...it's not for everyone...but it is a
trip.
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Powerful Powerful Stuff
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Reviewer: rcarlberg@aol.com
 from Seattle March 20, 1999
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| Music sometimes has the power to move us,
and none moreso than Reed's "Berlin." This is some of the most
harrowing music ever recorded. If you can listen without crying to
"The Kids," with it's refrain "They're taking her children away"
while terrified children scream "Mommy! Mommy!" in the background,
well then you're lacking all human compassion.
It's not a party album. You wouldn't play it to cheer up after a
hard day. But in terms of using the power of music to sweep you into
another person's reality, and put you face-to-face with some of the
darker aspects of a dark, misbegotten life, well, there's nothing
stronger.
A long overdue reissue, and one of my favorite albums of all
time.
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 Rock Hudson for the Teutonic
Age
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Reviewer: A music fan
from Los Angeles, CA February 14,
1999
|
Stella! Where are my pills?! Check: a
modern-day sludge-piece that sounds like Sid Vicious-ballroom chic.
No bullseye, but better than average. No, this turkey is as harmless
as last night's boiled egg. The atmospherics lend a certain hype to
the derivative story-line: wow! we've got a concept album on our
hands. But then, maybe Lou's got his fingers wire-tapped to popular
histrionics. In that case, not bad for a blathering idiot who
stepped out of the Velvet time machine and decided to impregnate
Lawrence Welk. Call it a blue-collar workingman's blues; call it
anything you like. It's still Berlin, and it's still Lou Reed as the
uncomplicated genius of musicaldom.
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 Another concept album, why?
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Reviewer: A music fan
from Corona CA February 11,
1999
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Lou Reed, a songwriter of enormous
talent, must have realized how talented he was. That was his
mistake. Concept albums, usually, are dreadful experiences, and this
is nothing more than a slightly above average concept album.
Produced by the guy who eventually produced rocks most overrated
yawner "The Wall" by Pink Floyd, the grit and streetmuck feeling of
The Velvet Underground is gone and replaced with Mantovani dribble.
As far as the songs, "The Kids" is a harrowing song, and at times on
"Berlin," the melodrama works. But now, due to the advance in
reissue technology, the original versions of these songs by the
Velvet Underground are superior ("Oh Jim" [on "Peel Slowly and See"]
as "Oh Gin" and "Sad Song"], and make the "Berlin" versions sound
extremely pretentious. Lou Reed fans must own this record, because
it is his most elaborate recording, and reportedly, one of his
favorite of his own albums. It will probably bore to tears just
about everybody else. "Berlin" is well represented on the Lou Reed
box-set, "Between Thought and Expression," which is highly
recommended.
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| 0 people found
this review helpful. 1 did not. |
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