Lou Reed: Berlin (1998 Remaster) CD Track Listing

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Lou Reed Berlin (1998 Remaster) (1973)
Berlin (1998 Remaster)\n\nOriginally Released October 1973\nCD Edition Released August 29, 1989\nRemastered CD Edition Released March 24, 1998\n\nAMG EXPERT REVIEW: Transformer and "Walk on the Wild Side" were both major hits in 1972, to the surprise of both Lou Reed and the music industry, and with Reed suddenly a hot commodity, he used his newly won clout to make the most ambitious album of his career, Berlin. Berlin was the musical equivalent of a drug-addled kid set loose in a candy store; the album's songs, which form a loose story line about a doomed romance between two chemically fueled bohemians, were fleshed out with a huge, boomy production (Bob Ezrin at his most grandiose) and arrangements overloaded with guitars, keyboards, horns, strings, and any other kitchen sink that was handy (the session band included Jack Bruce, Steve Winwood, Aynsley Dunbar, and Tony Levin). And while Reed had often been accused of focusing on the dark side of life, he and Ezrin approached Berlin as their opportunity to make The Most Depressing Album of All Time, and they hardly missed a trick. This all seemed a bit much for an artist who made such superb use of the two-guitars/bass/drums lineup with the Velvet Underground, especially since Reed doesn't even play electric guitar on the album; the sheer size of Berlin ultimately overpowers both Reed and his material. But if Berlin is largely a failure of ambition, that sets it apart from the vast majority of Reed's lesser works; Lou's vocals are both precise and impassioned, and though a few of the songs are little more than sketches, the best -- "How Do You Think It Feels," "Oh, Jim," "The Kids," and "Sad Song" -- are powerful, bitter stuff. It's hard not to be impressed by Berlin, given the sheer scope of the project, but while it earns an A for effort, the actual execution merits more of a B-. -- Mark Deming\n\nAmazon.com Editorial Review\nEternally perverse, Reed responded to having a pop hit with Transformer by making a massive bummer of an album, built around reworked versions of a couple of older songs. Berlin is psychologically grueling and unremittingly dark (scariest moment: "The Kids," which ends with a very long tape of children screaming in terror), but the savage contrasts of its sound have gotten more impressive with time. The big production flourishes hit like a hangover, Reed's voice sounds like he's trying to stave off emotional involvement with his lyrics because it would hurt too much, and the multi-layered textures of "Oh Jim" surge and recede like details of a nightmare. The album takes strength to hear, and rewards it. --Douglas Wolk \n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nA Dark Masterpiece!, November 9, 2005\nReviewer: Morten Vindberg\n"Berlin", which was Reed's follow-up to his highly succesful ( both musically and commercially ) 1972 album "Transformer", showcases a radical change in Reed's direction. Whereas "Transformer" was a mostty light and musically catchy album, "Berlin" is a more complex and darker album; both musically and lyrically. \n\nNo tracks have the commercial appeal which characterized many tracks on "Transformer", and the album contains no new hit-singles. The album works much better to be listened to as a whole, and only few tracks are suited for "Best of" compilations. Songs like "Caroline Says" and "How Do Think it Feels" would be the most obvious selections to put out. This doesn't mean that this is not good album; on the contrary; it may be his artistically most successful. Musically it's very varied in style and instrumentation. \n\nThe "Berlin" theme seems to have influenced the arrangements of the two opening tracks; especially "Lady Day" ( Kurt Weil ). \n\nThe songs are generally longer than on Reed's two previous albums, but you are never bored when listening to the album; and once you have gotten to know the songs, you'll notice that it is really a very melodic album, with no unimportant tracks. \n\nThis is Reed's Dark Masterpiece!\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nImpossibly dark, April 16, 2005\nReviewer: John Miele\nAfter the surprise success of Lou Reed's 1972 album Transformer, common sense would've told anyone he would stick to its glam-rockish style. Of course, they would be wrong. Lou Reed used his new found stardom to release one of the most ambitious and depressing albums ever - Berlin. Critics and fans were hesitant to embrace the cold, dark album. But it's a tortured masterpiece, brimming with brilliance. Stories about the recording of this album depict an ambitious Lou Reed spiralling into speed abuse and decadence, while producer Bob Ezrin has been quoted as saying "I think the best idea is that we put it in a box, put the box in a closet, leave it there and don't listen to it again." \n\nDoes the album actually live up to that reputation? \n\nAbsolutely. The story of Jim and Caroline's inherently doomed relationship, their descent into drug abuse (much like Lou's own), Jim's dangerous violent rages, and finally Caroline's emotional collapse and demise are given a dramatic, booming production by Bob Ezrin (who, incidentally, had a sort of nervous breakdown resulting from these recording sessions). Though Rolling Stone was impressed, going so far as to call it the Sgt. Pepper of the 70's, it was a massive commercial failure. But its an excellent album, unflinchingly realistic and tragic, like Transformer with the glam and glitter stripped away. The all-time best moment: "Caroline Says II" and "The Kids." Those songs pack a one-two punch that can leave the listener dazed, especially because of the Reed's detached vocal style. He pulls no punches, he barely shows any emotion, and he certainly has no sympathy for either Jim or Caroline. It's as if you're watching the story unfold with your eyelids held open (a la Clockwork Orange) - you simply can't escape. On first listen, it's an incredibly difficult album to listen to, but it deserves more credit than most critics give it. By all means, purchase Berlin, but do it knowing what you're going to listen to - one of the most depressing, harrowing, and frightening albums of all time, but ultimately one of the most rewarding.\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nMostly sad, the shape of thought in our time, September 28, 2003\nReviewer: Bruce P. Barten (Saint Paul, Minnesota, U.S.A.)\nThere are a few albums that have some dreary songs I might recognize, but one that is so important, having the CD is the obvious way to get it. "Berlin" starts with a small cafe, 'Oh Honey' kind of song that might be a relief for people who can't rock hard all the time. But this is a Lou Reed album, and the music starts pounding a bit more with, "I said No No No, Oh Lady Day" in the second song. Then the songs start to sound better and even intellectually interesting. "Men of Good Fortune" is a historical sociological study with a "Me, I just don't care at all" attitude, but with an inviting melody. "It takes money to make money, they say. . . . Anyway, makes no difference to me." Schopenhauer fans ought to understand this attitude toward beauty. When the music gets good, other elements of life might lose their significance. This is not the most convincing song on the album. Mostly it is a contrast between men of good fortune and men of poor beginnings who might mess things up just as much.\nPointy headed intellectuals spouting off on the obvious are sure to be the main grabbers of attention in the media which dominate a world in which every problem has an answer which is clear, direct, and wrong. Rock 'n' roll is just as bad. Lou Reed is a perfect example. People who want to know what the music on this album is like might be typical, superfluous superficialities produced by a nation of shoppers in a world of global spectators. "Caroline Says" is about some dramatic queen, with poor Lou Reed singing, "But of course, I thought I could take it all." Then she says she can't continue to be only mine, "but she's still my queen." I'm not rating the music very high on this song.\n\nThe song that makes this CD worthy, for me, is "How Do You Think It Feels" which asks, "And when do you think it stops?" Popularity in the media is obtained by the ability to communicate feelings, but this song takes its feelings to extremes, "when you've been up for five days." Desire is the feeling that this song exudes, and lust seems to be the feeling that gets the biggest workout, as "always make love by proxy" must be about relying on the media for fulfilling fundamental desires. Those of us who have devoted so much of our lives to evaluating the things a consumer society can offer ought to ask ourselves if Lou Reed gets out in front of our questions once in awhile by asking how we dare to evaluate so much that is fundamentally at loose ends. "Oh Jim" might be a sincere attempt to supply some answer about how people are coping, or failing to cope. The next song, another "Caroline Says" asserts "This is a bum trip." So she put her wrist through a window pane, it's so cold in Alaska. There is razor that cuts a wrist in a later song, and you might not want to listen to anything that ends this way. It must be "The Bed," in which "I said Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh, what a feeling!" Then the song gets spooky. This might be freaking people out before "Sad Song" at the end, which is a relief.\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nTHE BLACK-EYED DAHLIA, March 29, 2002\nReviewer: tim byrnes (La Junta CO USA)\n"Berlin" is an unflinching look into the darkest corners of the human soul/psyche. Over stunning orchestration and stellar production (by Bob Ezrin, who is for some reason more famous for producing "The Wall" than "Berlin") Lou Reed, the voice of cool neutrality, submits for our approval (or rejection, i somehow think it's all the same to Lou, and that our feelings and opinions matter not) the starkly delineated tale of two expatriate speedfreaks living in Berlin, and how they torture each other in a spiritually bankrupt vacuum of tympanis and violins, ghost choruses of sick angels and science-fiction doowop, and how the torture of ownership as love and S&M junkiedom leads inexorably to death. In this case her suicide is of course a literal death, but as the male half of this diseased equation wraps himself in the bloody sheets of her deathbed and declares himself good because "somebody else would have broken both of her arms", then we are left with the sound of the death of a spirit, the wasting of a soul, a sad song indeed.\n\nFor your listening pleasure? \n\nThe "Citizen Kane" of rock and roll. It's that simple.\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nINSIGHT: rhymes/w TRITE, March 6, 2002\nReviewer: Kerry Leimer (Makawao, Hawaii United States)\nWith lyrics like "In Berlin, by the wall, you were [ I can no longer remember the exact measure, let's say ] 5 foot, 6 inches tall", or the equally banal "Since she lost her daughter, it's her eyes that flow with water" - the listener should immediately sense trouble. Because when we finally hear the daughter start to scream - by the way, was it "daughter" singular, or "daughters" plural? there seem to be lots of 'em wailing in here - we know we've arrived solidly in the dark, airless basement of unadulterated, manipulative kitsch. And it gets worse: you'd better force yourself to nod knowingly during "Sad Song". If you laugh, giggle or snicker at the formula string arrangements you'll simply ruin it for the rest of us.\nTogether with its grade-school lyrics and haunting lack of imagination, "Berlin" delivers a degree of pretension exceeded only by the more recent "Drella". What can I say? "Berlin" is easily as dumb as that other trainwreck, ELP's "Tarkus". While the music is unrelated, the two are joined by the vast and growing scale of their respective failures. Recall with me the appropriately weepy Moog that ushers us to the tear-filled end of our pretend monster. ***Sigh*** I can't help but also remember the phony emotions of "Berlin" and shed a tear, too, for "The Kids". \n\n"Berlin" is little more than a sometimes clever artist straining beyond all credulity. The album and ideas are pat, shallow and the whole thing tends to mope rather than reach any true depth of feeling. Skip it in favor of "Transformer". Then you'll have shot to someday join Joel and the bots on the Satellite of Love.\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nReed's Accidental Masterpiece., November 29, 2001\nReviewer: Mark Begley "Letterpressed.com" (Fresno, CA USA)\nI bought BERLIN after reading Victor Bockris's brutal biography of Reed, TRANSFORMER. It was hailed as a "masterpiece" throughout the book, and having been a big fan of Reed and VU for years, AND since it had just been re-issued on CD, I snatched it up. I had no idea what a surprise I was in for. Having heard many of the VU versions of these songs, and based on my other Reed discs, I was completely stunned by the theatrical-German-tavern orchestration, and the blatant violence (particularly misogyny) in the lyrics. None of this turned me off of the album, as I was determined to see it as a testament of a certain state of mind, which was discussed at length in TRANSFORMER. And according to the book the recording of this album was a catastrophe, what with Reed's increasing dependence on speed, and his emotional state. Knowing this, it is amazing that the album turned out as well as it did. But like so many other "masterpieces" it wasn't hailed as such until much, much later, when it could be listened to within its own context, and not just as the follow-up to the album TRANSFORMER. This leads me to my calling it an "accidental masterpiece," as obviously Reed's vocals aren't up to par, there's nary a Reed-guitar crunch in sight, and much of the orchestration is close to being absurdly overwrought. However, my reason for giving it five stars is that it IS a perfect testament to Reed's state of mind/being at that particular time, flaws and all. Not many albums achieve this. One last thing, I wish people would stop with the: "I like the VU version of this-or-that song better." I happen to like Reed's later takes on those songs, and in this case think that the BERLIN version of "Sad Song" is much more powerful than the original.\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nNot a "party album", July 20, 2000\nReviewer: vincent artman (Eugene, OR)\n"Berlin," in one word is "depressing." There is no other way to describe it. It's a great album though, following the descent of a a pair of loves from "love at first site" to suicide and indifference. One of the most chilling parts of "Berlin" is the end of "The Kids," which is the sounds of some children screaming and crying for their mother (according to legend, this was recorded in the studio, by tricking to youngsters into thinking their mother was dead. Whether that's true or not, I'm not sure.). Equally poignant is "The Bed," which describes the aftermath of a suicide. "Men of Good Fortune" is an excellent song as well. The liner notes describe Bob Ezrin's reaction to the album as being "Lock it in a box and never think of it again," or something of that nature. A perfectly depressing album for those sad, rainy days, when you're thinking about things in the past. The album is almost a form of empathy.\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nTough call, May 6, 2000\nReviewer: A music fan\nI'm a big Lou Reed fan, don't get me wrong, but the mountains of praise heaped upon "Berlin" have mystified me for years. I understand Reed's and producer Bob Ezrin's intentions regarding the layered production (at turns contrast and magnify the emotional point of the songs while giving the whole show an unsettling air) and I understand that this album is a Glam totem and is meant to be a challenge. I also have nothing against music that is difficult listening; Reed's own later "Magic and Loss" is no walk in the park, and I didn't become a Velvet Underground fan because "Heroin" made me feel chipper.\nMaybe it's just a difference in philosophy. When it comes to rock music (or the panoply of styles which now fall under the vague umbrella of rock music), I like to be punched in the gut, even if that punch only comes after many listens. In some ways, I have to admit, "Berlin" accomplishes that delayed punch. Many years after first hearing it, I can't seem to shake the album, and from time to time I go back to see if my tolerance for this recording has improved. So if Reed's ultimate point was to create something that nags at the listener (a perverse and very Lou Reed-ish thing to do), then he succeeded. My difficulty with "Berlin," however, is that there seems to be such squandered potential in these songs. The basic material here is outstanding, and if one listens to earlier versions of "Oh Jim," "Caroline Says" and "Sad Song" as recorded with The Velvet Underground (on the "Peel Slowly and See" box), one can hear these songs in their sparest form, when Reed's fiery spirit was still at work and not about to go on a decade-long binge. When I pick up my guitar and play "Men of Good Fortune" or "How Do You Think It Feels," I think I can hear in the melodies and lyrics the emotions that Reed was getting at before they were buried beneath a morass of instrumentation that seems as gaudy to me as a drag queen's jewelry.\n\nI know I can't slight Reed for changing and trying something different. It's something we all do in one way or another if we're to grow. By that same token, criticizing Reed by comparing his work from one album to another is a dead end, since he has explored plenty of stylistic avenues with varying degrees of success. When approaching "Berlin," then, one has to be careful about which Lou Reed one expects to hear. This is not the literate rock and roller of the Velvets years, and neither is this the mature, reflective street poet of the eighties and beyond -- it's not even the Reed of the previous year's "Transformer" -- though elements of those personas emerge here. To these ears, "Berlin" sounds like Lou Reed at his most cold and distant, bereft of the life blood that has made his best music so compelling. If that's the point, then so be it, but I don't have to listen.\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nDeepest impact of any rock album ever, February 2, 2000\nReviewer: Joseph Romano (Ithaca, NY)\nWhen this album was released, the MOVIE reviewer Rex Reed devoted his entire column, (I think for an entire week!) to a review of this album, he said he felt he had to because he hadn't slept for over a week since listening to it. It has been echoing through my soul ever since I first heard it: somehow the beauty and the ugliness combine to bottle our humaness into this simple elegant perfume, "Berlin." As a result, ugliness is not so ugly, and our beauty is sublime. Thank you Lou Reed for this album and a re-release cd. I can't wait to hear it without pops, I just hope you've included all the lp art, it is almost half of the vision.\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nLou Reed mines the beauty of despair., January 6, 2000\nReviewer: Stephen Caratzas (Brooklyn, New York)\nIt's sometimes hard for me to think about "Berlin" without conjuring up Mike Myers' Saturday Night Live character, Dieter (the host of "Sprockets"). Like Dieter ("I find your agony delicious"), Reed seeks -- and finds, in abundance -- the beauty in pain and despair on this unforgettable album.\n"Berlin" is all about darkness and decadence, though not the kind Lou Reed explored on "Transformer", his previous release. Rather than continuing with that disc's celebration of camp fruitery, "Berlin" takes a major turn onto seriously grim sidestreets littered with broken souls. A conceptual meditation on feelings most of us would rather not acknowledge, "Berlin" is a bitter narrative about the cruelty people can inflict on each other in the supposedly safe confines of a relationship.\n\nThe most amazing thing about "Berlin", however, isn't the subject matter, it's the music. Producer Bob Ezrin assembled an array of the era's most talented musicians (including Steve Winwood, Jack Bruce, Aynsley Dunbar and Tony Levin) and embroidered the album with lush, breathtaking string and wind orchestrations. The music and lyrics offset each other in stark contrast, much the same way a German expressionist film utilizes black and white. \n\nThroughout, Reed delivers his trademark off-key vocals with a more pronounced sense of detachment than is usual even for him; on "Berlin" he's not so much an impartial observer, but a willing accomplice to the proceedings who angrily refuses to do anything about the destiny unfolding before him.\n\n"Berlin" has been blasted as the ultimate downer of Reed's career -- quite an accomplishment, given the breadth of his depressive catalogue. Which is fair enough, for the faint of heart. For the rest of us, "Berlin" is a groundbreaking masterpiece.\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\ndefinitive solo work of a master., April 1, 1999\nReviewer: A music fan\nYet another example of the masses rejecting anything that doesn't sugarcoat things. This album is not cold, it's objective. Lou Reed presents the story, he doesn't judge it. The crushing lines in caroline says 2 "Caroline says as she gets up from the floor,You can hit me all you want to, but I dont love you anymore" illustrates the characters of this play perfectly,detached and hopeless. Many don't like believing these people exist. But reed has never been afraid to confront his listeners with such true depictions of the human condition. This album is also more approprietly produced than the critically acclaimed "transformer". "BERLIN" Belong behind only "blood on the tracks" as the best album of the 70's.\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nRock Hudson for the Teutonic Age, February 14, 1999\nReviewer: A music fan\nStella! Where are my pills?! Check: a modern-day sludge-piece that sounds like Sid Vicious-ballroom chic. No bullseye, but better than average. No, this turkey is as harmless as last night's boiled egg. The atmospherics lend a certain hype to the derivative story-line: wow! we've got a concept album on our hands. But then, maybe Lou's got his fingers wire-tapped to popular histrionics. In that case, not bad for a blathering idiot who stepped out of the Velvet time machine and decided to impregnate Lawrence Welk. Call it a blue-collar workingman's blues; call it anything you like. It's still Berlin, and it's still Lou Reed as the uncomplicated genius of musicaldom.\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nAnother concept album, why?, February 11, 1999\nReviewer: A music fan\nLou Reed, a songwriter of enormous talent, must have realized how talented he was. That was his mistake. Concept albums, usually, are dreadful experiences, and this is nothing more than a slightly above average concept album. Produced by the guy who eventually produced rocks most overrated yawner "The Wall" by Pink Floyd, the grit and streetmuck feeling of The Velvet Underground is gone and replaced with Mantovani dribble. As far as the songs, "The Kids" is a harrowing song, and at times on "Berlin," the melodrama works. But now, due to the advance in reissue technology, the original versions of these songs by the Velvet Underground are superior ("Oh Jim" [on "Peel Slowly and See"] as "Oh Gin" and "Sad Song"], and make the "Berlin" versions sound extremely pretentious. Lou Reed fans must own this record, because it is his most elaborate recording, and reportedly, one of his favorite of his own albums. It will probably bore to tears just about everybody else. "Berlin" is well represented on the Lou Reed box-set, "Between Thought and Expression," which is highly recommended.\n\nAMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW\nThis is a very dark record, but perhaps Reed's finest., August 23, 1998\nReviewer: A music fan\nThis album features an all-star cast performing a grisly array of tunes evoking a depressing Berlin underworld. Performers include Jack Bruce (of Cream) on bass, Aynsley Dunbar (of the Mothers of Invention) on drums and Bob Ezrin as pianist and arranger. For all the misery portrayed (drug abuse, abandonment, suicide, physical abuse, etc.)the record ends with a chorus of angels. Not exactly life affirming, but at least laying claim to a transcendent beauty. I haven't listened to this record in years, frankly, because it's too sad. But I still think it's great music which speaks some dark truths. Like the paintings of Goya, it's not for everyone.\n\nHalf.com Details \nContributing artists: Michael Brecker, Randy Brecker, Steve Winwood \nProducer: Bob Ezrin \n\nAlbum Notes\nPersonnel include: Lou Reed (vocals, acoustic guitar); Gene Martynec (acoustic guitar, synthesizer); Dick Wagner (electric guitar, background vocals); Steve Hunter (electric guitar); Michael Brecker (tenor saxophone); Randy Brecker (trumpet); Jon Pierson (bass trombone); Bob Ezrin (piano, Mellotron); Blue Weaver, Allan Macmillan (piano); Steve Winwood (harmonium, organ); Tony Levin, Jack Bruce (bass instrument); Aynsley Dunbar, B.J. Wilson (drums).\n\nLiner Note Author: Michael Hill.\nRecording information: Morgan Studios, North London, United Kingdom.\n\nAfter the success of his glam-rockish TRANSFORMER, the expectation was that Lou Reed would plow deeper into commercial territory. As usual, Reed delighted in confounding expectations. BERLIN is a song cycle that uses the decadence of its namesake and some Brecht/Weill-esque orchestrations to tell a story of two psychically damaged people and their doomed relationship. (Aided by Berlin producer Bob Ezrin, Pink Floyd would attempt a similar feat several years later on THE WALL).\nFar from the rock-star poses of TRANSFORMER, BERLIN is lyrically and musically frank and blunt. The arrangements move from sophisticated, arch orchestration to naked-sounding acoustic sparseness, but the words are uniformly unflinching in their depiction of violence, addiction, and desperation. Not for the faint of heart, BERLIN is a harrowing journey through the aforementioned tribulations, and one of Reed's most unusual, demanding, but ultimately rewarding albums.\n\nIndustry Reviews\n5 Stars - Indispensable - ...a melancholy masterpiece...places Reed's dry narrative in sophisticated settings...\nQ (05/01/1992)\n\nRanked #33 among The Greatest Albums Of The '70s.\nNME (09/18/1993)
This rock cd contains 10 tracks and runs 49min 35sec.
Freedb: 7a0b9d0a
Buy: from Amazon.com

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