First I found a Rock 'n Roll Animal record and then a Transformer. Great stuff! I enjoyed both thoroughly. So I kept looking for more Lou Reed and found a very clean copy of Berlin (paid premium price too!) and I don't like it. :sigh: I don't know if he went on a drug binge after his successful previous albums or what but...one could commit suicide after listening to this depressing (and uninspiring) record. I may listen to it again....but I'm pretty sure there's no way that this is going to earn a spot in the collection. Disappointed.

Not a big fan of that record either. When he's on, he's really on. But he's off occasionally, too.

Try New York, if you run across it sometime. Much better, IMO.

Berlin has alway been one of my top 100 LP's. I certainly understand you not liking it however. Except for the kid at the music store who was in shocked approval when I bought my latest copy a few years ago I have never met anyone else who does like it. You are right about the "drugged out sound" All Music calls says, "Berlin was the musical equivalent of a drug-addled kid set loose in a candy store". Give it another listen or two and if still nothing, pass it along.

Yep. Bought "Berlin" when it first came out. Had a hard time warming up to it. Try hunting down a copy of Velvet Underground's "Loaded" on Cotillion. Or "Fully Loaded" (double seedie) on Rhino. Features "Sweet Jane", "Who Loves The Sun" and a few other gems.

I probably will give it another listen. Thanks for the other records to keep an eye out for. Fully Loaded with Sweet Jane sounds like something in particular....I do like that song.

New Sensations, Mistrial and Magic and Loss are pretty good also if you like his later work.

Some dyed in the wool Lou Reed fan's might not approve of these other than Magic and Loss.

RC

New Sensations, Mistrial and Magic and Loss are pretty good also if you like his later work.

Some dyed in the wool Lou Reed fan's might not approve of these other than Magic and Loss.

RC

I can't even get through Magic & Loss, but hey.........

Well, Berlin it is for you then.

I bet your a Pink Floyd Ummagumma guy also.


The point was if she likes Lou Reed but not the Berlin album, Maybe some of his later work might be appealing. Just a thought.

RC

You may be right about some of the later stuff.

And, Pink What?

You may be right about some of the later stuff.

And, Pink What?


:lmao:


Oh come on, you know you are a early work Pink Floyd fan

"Berlin" has a few nice moments on it, but I haven't listened to it in years - it is mostly depressing and melodramatic to the point of being silly.

:lmao:


Oh come on, you know you are a early work Pink Floyd fan

Back on dat crack pipe again?

New York, The Blue Mask, and even Songs for Drella are all really good.

New York, The Blue Mask, and even Songs for Drella are all really good.

Oh yeah! I forgot about New York. That gets played around here from time to time.

RC

Oh yeah! I forgot about New York. That gets played around here from time to time.

RC

Check out Post #2. And put down that pipe.

Berlin was one of the rock albums that made me start to listen to jazz. Really unlistenable for me.

if you haven't heard it, listen to THE BELLS. it is great.

New York is "on." I gotta disagree on Songs for Drella. Loaded is often my favorite VU album. The early Cotillion pressing is worth hunting down.

I agree, The Bells is excellent - also underrated.

My own favorite Reed record is the first, Lou Reed (1972) -- see cover pic attached below -- this is the one that has Steve Howe on it. After that I'd probably go with Blue Mask as second favorite, after that there's just a big clump of number threes. I am - or was - pretty fond of Street Hassle, so maybe that's next?

As for Berlin: I like it well enough, but then I also like Metal Machine Music enough to have actually replaced my worn out, original copy.

Hey Mystic, I was just going to warn the youngsters away from "Metal Machine Music." You actually wore out a copy! Not sure whether you deserve praise or to be carted off to a rubber room somewhere.

Find Berlin a bit overblown and melodramatic (this was an age when a lot of rock was moving in that direction), but give Reed kudos for making the try.

Suggest getting the early Velvet Underground recordings, if you like Reed's more accessible material. Lot of it is as vital and vibrant now as it was when recorded almost 40 years ago.

Hey Mystic, I was just going to warn the youngsters away from "Metal Machine Music." You actually wore out a copy! Not sure whether you deserve praise or to be carted off to a rubber room somewhere

I think I was trying to drive my parents into a rubber room somewhere :D by playing MMM so often (first copy). Copy # 2 purchased because it was a mint (and I mean unplayed) studio acetate version and, well, I was a record collector. As for the noise quality of MMM, this album is like listening to t Monkees compared to such contemporary "difficult listening" outfits as Boris, Merzbow and Nurse With Wound.

You'er spot on about the early VU material, that's the place to go to hear the sassy NYC urban poetry of one Lou Reed. Music's pretty good, too.

The story goes (maybe apocryphal), that Reed owed his record company one more record before his contract expired. Voila, "Metal Machine Music." By the way Mystic, I hope you visit your poor parents regularly at the sanitorium, or at the very least are paying for their medication.

Legendary Hearts is my favorite Lou Reed Album

something about "a slave to the oncoming truck" on Betrayed. Powerful stuff

Huge Lou Reed fan myself. Favorite album is "Lou Reed Live - Take No Prisoners" Really good version of "Waiting for the Man". A lot harder than the Velvet Underground but in a good way (not for listening with the kids, though). Same thing with "Pale Blue Eyes", harder but fantastic with a really good, haunting sax solo. Also a good version of "Berlin". Lou tends to wander a bit on "Sweet Jane", not one of my favorite versions. "Satellite of Love" is great as well. Pretty fantastic album if you like Lou Reed.

"In Berlin, by the wall, you were five foot ten inches tall. It was very nice...candlelight and Dubonnet on ice."

Berlin is one of my all-time faves and definitely in my Top-5. It IS depressing. It IS suicidal. It is the only LP ever that Rolling Stone Magazine felt obligated to publish a counter to its own negative review. That reads in part:

Stephen Davis, writing in this magazine [Rolling Stone], characterized the record as 'a distorted and degenerate demimonde of paranoia, schizophrenia, degradation, pill-induced violence, and suicide.' Which it is. But I fail to see how that makes a bad record. Berlin is bitter, uncompromising, and one of the most fully realized concept albums. Prettiness has nothing to do with art, nor does good taste, good manners, or good morals. - Timothy Ferris

Listen to it in the dark, with headphones on and a glass of whiskey next to you. It listens like a film's soundtrack. My wife cannot listen to The Kids because it is too disturbing for her to hear. The pain that she has experienced in her life are reborn in that track.

Caroline says as she gets up off the floor, "Why is it that you beat me? It isn't any fun."

The musicians are phenomenal. I feel this is one of Jack Bruce's strongest performances...EVER. Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner light it up as well. Aynsley Dunbar's drums are superb, especially in Oh, Jim. In the remaster (2003 maybe?) you can hear lots of little things you can't hear on the LP...people whispering in the studio background (22-sec. into HDYTIF? for example), picks about to pluck strings, drumsticks clicking together...

Side 2 is not easy to listen to, where all of the pain and agony in the story reach their climax in The Kids.

Lyrically, I feel this is Lou's strongest statement in the 1970's. There is no filler. No "Baby, Baby's" or "Oh, Yeah's." Every word of every sentence tells the story as Lou passively sits next to characters.

The rich son waits for his father to die, the poor just drink and cry, and me...I just don't care at all.

Put on Caroline Says I at high volume for god's sake!

I know this album isn't for everyone. It is no doubt a challenge to listen to at times, if only for the content. Most hardcore Lou fans find this to be his most important post-Velvet Underground work. And believe it or not, Lou is touring Berlin RIGHT NOW. My friend in the UK saw it and witnessed men and women crying in their seats.

Here is one of the first adverts for the LP. Little did the consumer know, that the booklet that came with the record had pictures of the couple from the ad...with blood splattered on the bed.

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r113/mg196/Misc%20Music/AdBerlin.jpg

mg196. Really nice review of a complex, difficult to listen to album (I'm really tired of the "that's great," or "that sucks," review). My brother was a big fan of "Berlin" when it originally came out, so listened to it a lot for awhile (still own a copy). Some good music, definitely not for the timid or those who merely want to boogie. Reed was trying to make some complex statements here (reminds me of Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks," another complex, difficult to listen to album). I'm not as enamored of the album as you are, but Reed was one of the few who could even make an attempt at something like this. I think it will be around and listened to long after a lot of lighter, more popular music from that time is forgotten.

mg196. Really nice review of a complex, difficult to listen to album (I'm really tired of the "that's great," or "that sucks," review).

No prob, dude. Lou is one of my specialties!