I must admit, I did not take to Lou Reed's 1973 album, Berlin when I heard it for the first time on a cold autumn morning. Lou Reed was/is a hero of mine and I thought rather presumptuously that I understood his sensibility based on his work with the VU and his earlier solo stuff (I hadn't yet heard The Raven or Songs For Drella). Listening to Berlin, I was flummoxed by the way the album sounded, which I could only attribute to the influence of Bob Ezrin (producer extraordinaire on albums by classic rock titans, Pink Floyd, Alice Cooper, Kiss, Peter Gabriel and Kansas as well as more recently, Jane's Addiction and The Deftones) on the recording process. Berlin sounded too grandiose, too much in the vein of "classic rock," (Alice Cooper, Pink Floyd and Led Zep were okay, but Lou Reed?) too much like a "concept" album (which of course, it is) for my undeveloped taste, especially since I had up until then admired Reed chiefly for his ability to convey incredibly trenchant observations about people in simple, compact, and unabashed lyrics. Plus, the songs were too depressing for me to give it a fair chance at the time. I didn't think it was a bad album, I was just thrown by the album's stylistic departure (more so than when I heard Metal Machine Music!). Anyway, I can now say with hindsight that Berlin is probably one of Lou Reed's best albums.
In 2006, Julian Schnabel (Diving Bell and the Butterfly) filmed Reed and his band (featuring Antony on backing vocals) performing the full album at St. Ann's Warehouse in New York. The film was given a limited release at the Film Forum in NYC and I believe at the Landmark in L.A. It is now available on DVD.
Watch it in its entirety here or on the player above.
New York Times review
Tales From Divided Berlin, Where Angst Ate the Soul
By Stephen Holden
Published: July 18, 2008
In Julian Schnabel’s grimly majestic concert film “Lou Reed’s Berlin,” Mr. Reed wears the deadpan smirk of a Zen master who has endured unusually punishing Buddhist training. His look isn’t that of a blissed-out monk newly returned from mountaintop meditations. It is the grimly amused seen-it-all stare of a voyeuristic chronicler of drug-fueled sadomasochistic rituals in the grittier corners of cities that never sleep. This is the real world, Mr. Reed seems to signal, while strumming tough minimalist riffs on his guitar and singing in a quavering, gravelly monotone: Get used to it, boys and girls.
At the December 2006 concerts of Mr. Reed’s rock oratorio “Berlin” at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, where the movie was filmed, Mr. Reed performed with a 35-piece ensemble conducted by his fellow guitarist Steve Hunter, who played on the original 1973 “Berlin” album. The movie faithfully reproduces the sound of that record, which was a commercial disappointment when released. Read more...
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