The 500 - #344 - Berlin - Lou Reed

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: # 344

Album Title: Berlin

Artist: Lou Reed

Genre: Rock, Art Rock

Recorded: Morgan Studios, London and The Record Plant, NYC

Released: October, 1973

My age at release: 8

How familiar was I with it before this week: Not at all

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Sad Song

In 1973, Lou Reed was enjoying tremendous success commercially and critically. Throughout the sixties, Reed had been the principal songwriter, guitarist and singer of the influential art-rock collective, The Velvet Underground, a group with four albums on #The 500.

The Velvet Underground - Reed is bottom right

After leaving his bandmates to pursue a solo career, he released the groundbreaking record Transformer in 1972. Produced by David Bowie and Mick Ronson, the record is regarded as an "influential landmark in the glam rock genre" It is ranked at #194 on The 500.

Reed returned to the studio in the spring of 1973 to begin working on his third solo record, a tragic rock opera he named Berlin. This time Reed worked with Canadian producer Bob Ezrin. Ezrin, 24 at the time, had started to make a name for himself through his work with Alice Cooper. However, he would go on to work with many legendary bands and artists, many with records on The 500 list including, Pink Floyd, Aerosmith, Peter Gabriel and KISS.

Bob Ezrin (left) with Alice Cooper (1975)

The concept for the Berlin album began when Ezrin told Reed that his songs were powerful narratives with compelling characters that had "great beginnings, but didn't have an end". Specifically, Ezrin asked about the song with the same name, Berlin, from Reed's first album. In that song, Reed introduces two young lovers out on a date in the German city, from which it and his third album take their name.

Lou Reed's self-titled debut (which contains the song Berlin

Reed was inspired and began to craft the music and lyrics for a 50-minute rock-opera that details the brutal, tragic lives of Caroline and Jim. The album explores themes of depression, drug use, prostitution, domestic violence and ultimately suicide.

Berlin, the album, was poorly received on release. Rolling Stone magazine writer Stephen Davis wrote:

"Lou Reed's Berlin is a disaster, taking the listener into a distorted and degenerate demimonde of paranoia, schizophrenia, degradation, pill-induced violence and suicide. There are certain records that are so patently offensive that one wishes to take some kind of physical vengeance on the artists that perpetrate them.”

I’ll admit, the rock opera is not an easy listen, particularly once you understand the lyrics. However, as a teen I would have loved this record. My teens were a period when I devoured dark, depressing and gritty media, be they novels, films, albums or non-fiction documentaries. I read, nearly exclusively, horror novels and violent fantasy-literature. My favourite films, although critically acclaimed, were also brutally violent historical dramas (Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket), or troubling, dystopian science fiction flicks (A Clockwork Orange, The Warriors, Mad Max: The Road Warrior, Brazil).

A selection of my favourite films as a teen.

I was also fascinated by the darkest chapters of human history (The Holocaust, Pinochet, Steven Biko, The Khmer Rouge). Increasingly, my views of governments, even my own, darkened -- almost to the point that I became conspiratorial.

Fortunately time changes people, although I still enjoy a well-written tragedy or dystopian narrative (Breaking Bad, The Wire, Black Mirror), but, more often, I opt for silly escapism or light-hearted comedy. In the past week, my wife and I watched the comedy adventure Free Guy and we finished Season Two of the hysterical and infectiously positive Ted Lasso.

Likely, the passage of time nurtured my emotional maturity and I've realized that life is too short to intentionally inflict misery on yourself.

To borrow a line from the final song on Reed's Berlin:

"Sad Song, Sad Song
I'm gonna stop wasting my time".