Records That Will Change You
Lou Reed’s “Berlin” (1973) is simply the most devastating record I have ever heard. Nothing even comes close, nothing by Pink Floyd (for whom “darkness” was a business model), nothing by Elliott Smith (whose music has become inseparable from his biography). In college, I do not think I listened to “Berlin” when I wasn’t under the influence. By choice, I have not listened to it in years.
But it is Reed’s post-Velvets masterpiece. The arc from euphoric romance to darkest tragedy is brutal and determined, each song more unforgiving than the last. By the time the listener gets to “They’re taking…her children…away/Because they she said she was bad mutha” the day, nay, the week is ruined. When “Sad Song” rolls around it is a fait accompli and the listener is left wondering how to get out of the fetal position. Some have said Lou dips into melodrama with “Berlin” but I say hell no…he earns every bit of the emotional power this album produces. Those who want redemption in their music need to look elsewhere. This record offers none.
So why would anyone want to listen to “Berlin,” you say? So much music has assumed the role of an offstage fluffer these days, the stuff folks listen to as dispensible overhead to the mainstage of their lives. Not so, “Berlin.” It will demand your participation and it will change you, and beautiful…God, is it beautiful.“Berlin” delivers in spades the kind of darkness that Reed attempted elsewhere but never again produced. And he never will.
Note: Portions of these were previously published on GodIHateYourBand.
liveoakblues
Live Oak Blues 
Posted by NJ Gator on May 11, 2011 at 3:41 pm
This was the first Lou Reed Solo album I ever bought. I picked a good one. That song with the crying children is a heartbreaker each and every time.
Posted by liveoakblues on May 11, 2011 at 3:43 pm
How the songs work to that moment makes it all the more powerful.
Posted by Afrobutterfly on May 19, 2011 at 4:56 pm
Great album and great write-up, though I disagree that it’s Lou’s post-VU masterpiece. I’d grant that distinction to the unimpeachable “Transformers.” As far as most devastating album I’ve ever heard, gotta be “Tonight’s The Night” or “Closer”. Never felt good after listening to either all the way through.
Posted by liveoakblues on May 19, 2011 at 7:09 pm
Thanks, man. “Transformer” is a great album and probably his best, but it’s a collection of songs. “Berlin” is frontal assault designed to one thing. “Tonight’s The Night” and “Closer” are apt comparisons for sure. I tried to listen to “Closer” (a masterpiece itself) last year and never got all the way through.
Posted by denverbutson on May 31, 2011 at 2:03 pm
I remember driving with a cassette tape of this playing in the dashboard of my Volkswagen, up into the Blue Ridge Mountains with three young women with me in the car, one of whom I was intensely courting, and by the time we reached the top of the mountain and near the end of the record, all three had gone from openly mocking Lou to stunned silence to open weeping. If ever my advances were going to be reciprocated it was then, and they weren’t. Thanks for reminding me of this, Chris.
Posted by liveoakblues on May 31, 2011 at 2:06 pm
I believe I can still name the women in question.