I'm of two minds on what I want to do next. On the one hand I've developed a pretty strong opinion of Lou Reed, mostly informed by others and partly based on having heard one of "his" albums. With that in mind I almost feel as though I should give Lou Reed and his ardent followers the best chance at proving this music is as good as they all claim it is. That would lead me to review the albums in chronological order, which would give me a chance to settle in and evolve along Lou Reed's musical path. That would mean the next album I should hear is The Velvet Underground's White Light/White Heat.
On the other hand, Lou Reed and his little cult are so obnoxious in their pretense that this music is so amazing and everything else is shit, fuck all that. Berlin is up next in my random order so I'm reviewing Berlin.
Oh, Jesus fucking Christ (sorry Mom). The title track opens with maybe the worst noise I've ever heard on a professional album in my life. It's really scratchy, possibly an old recording pulled out of a dumpster fire, but I can make out garbled German, someone singing happy birthday, a piano randomly playing honky-tonk, and maybe somebody scratchng the microphone with a cheese grater. Eventually the noise drops out leaving just the piano gently playing. My advice is to skip the first minute or so if you value your eardrums. Lou Reed does sorta sing along with the piano in the latter half of the song, though as expected his melody is half-hearted and his vocal quality unintereseting. The good news is unlike The Velvet Underground & Nico it looks like Reed hired a decent sound engineer for Berlin, because the sound is pretty clear and balanced.
One thing I'm noticing as the album plays is that if Lou Reed's voice could just be removed and these songs turned into instrumentals they wouldn't be half bad. They are a bit crowded and not real ambient, but Reed can compose an interesting melody and arrange an eclectic set of instruments that work together well. But, and it's a big but, Lou Reed is an awful vocalist. So any attempt to really get into the music is completely ruined by Reed's plodding, lazy, no-range, almost melody-free low tenor. I also get the feeling from Reed's lyrics and minimal attempt at stylizing his singing that he thinks he's being cute.
Sample lyric: "She is not afraid to die. All of her friends call her Alaska." No comment.
OK, credit where due, "The Bed" is pretty damn good, if only it weren't for the parts where Reed can't figure out what to say other than, "Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh..." Other than that it's like a legitimately awesome haunting epic. I'd contrast it with Phil Collins' "In The Air Tonight" which is a phony awesome haunting epic, but really the songs aren't at all similar. I made the connection in my head, or maybe my brain just wanted to mention how much I hated that other song for some reason, but it has nothing to do with anything so forget I wrote that.
Anyhoo, Berlin ends with an over-the-top performance lazily called "Sad Song". The chorus is especially terrible, I guess because it's supposed to be a joke. The supporting orchestra does a breakdown so the choir can sing, "Saaaaaad Soooooonnnnng!" while Reed blurts out a half-hearted, "Sad Song." It's probably not that bad for most people, I've just come to despise almost everything Lou Reed sings.
All that said I kinda enjoyed Berlin. It was a surprisingly interesting and musically diverse listen. I still don't think Lou Reed was at all justified in thinking he was the hottest shit on the planet especially considering what other great bands were doing around this time- off the top of my head, Berlin was released midway between Houses of the Holy and Quadrophenia. Berlin is complex and diverse but a bit of a mess. You should probably listen to it at least once. 3 stars.
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