Rock and Roll Music: June 2004 Archives
As a person much more inspired by the recorded medium than by live music, the idea of the self-contained, definitive statement is really intriguing to me, thus accounting for my somewhat irrational obsession with the self-indulgent "concept record." All of my favorite records are anchored by some divining force, narrative or otherwise, adding a certain level of depth missing from just a random song cycle.
Which brings us, however clunkily (I'm really writing this in a hurry today, friends), to Lou Reed's solo masterpiece, Berlin. Apparently it's sad sap concept records week here at GBoAT. Though I disagree slightly with age old suggestion that the album, a narrative about the desperate affairs of drug-addled Germans, is the most depressing album of all time (I mean, a record with that many bitchin' licks could hardly beat out somebody like Joy Division or Codeine in the Emo department), I will admit that there are few records I reach for more quickly when I want to wallow in self-pity. Which says something, considering my record collection.
The studio follow-up to Transformer, Reed's ultra-successful, Bowie-produced glam comeback record, Berlin was a hard pill to swallow--with critical and commercial responses resoundingly negative upon it's initial release. Using the Berlin wall as a metaphor for the emotional barriers men and women raise between one another, Berlin is in no way a concept in the Pink Floyd sense; its narrative escaping the grandiose with simplicity and humanity. Themes include: drug abuse, child neglect, physical abuse, and eventually suicide.
It's unlike any of Reed's other works, and still stands as the pinnacle of his post-Velvet's career--aided largely by the re-workings of three then-unreleased Velvet Underground-era songs ("Stephanie Says" becomes "Caroline Says II," "Oh Gin" is engulfed into "Oh Jim," and "Sad Song" is expanded to an orchestral giant)--though all of the songs arguably better in their pre-Berlin forms. And that's another odd thing about Berlin--although the concept works strictly on a narrative sense, four of its ten songs were written independently several years before the record was conceived (with the title track appearing on Reed's oft-forgotten first solo record). Still, the record works with surprising consistency.
another fun fact that i just learned this morning: there is a "lost" instrumental track, a segue between the first and second songs on the album, that only appears on the 8-track version of Berlin. Very awkward format. Weird call, Lou.
Though perhaps not living up to its hype as the Most Depressing Album of All Time, Berlin has no trouble maintaining its crown as the Greatest Album of All Time.
