“This is it”: the album Lou Reed thought surpassed Berlin
It’s been proven time and time again that the music the public likes best versus the music the artists themselves like best is not always correlated. If the mass cultural consideration of the musical greats’ best albums was plotted on a graph alongside the artist’s own picks, it would be a mess as, throughout history, musicians have routinely been left trying to champion the worth of one release while their followers focus on another. Lou Reed was one of them, as he believed a different album was his true opus, not the one people declared it to be.
Typically, this comes about as the public overwhelmingly like easier projects. Generally, an artist’s biggest and perceived best work ends up being their most commercial or broadly enjoyable. Prince displayed greatness his entire career, but Purple Rain is undeniably his most approachable and widely catchy record, making it his most popular. Everybody loves The Beatles, but there’s a reason why ‘Hey Jude’ is better known than, say, ‘Revolution 9’. It usually ends up that the public hooks onto a release that feels understandable, accessible and catchy, positioning that as an artist’s finest moment.
But in the world of Lou Reed, it’s slightly more complex. If that approach were to be applied, Transformer would undoubtedly be considered by the masses to be his best. And while its tracks like ‘Satellite Of Love’, ‘Perfect Day’ and ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ are his biggest and best known, those deeply indoctrinated into the artist’s world often see Berlin as his finest hour.
For those truly invested in Reed’s legacy, knowing and understanding his creative mind and following through the various Velvet Underground phases, Berlin feels like his ultimate creation. It’s where an idea he had on his debut solo album finally came to fruition as the 1972 track ‘Berlin’ morphed into a whole concept album where Reed went all in on telling a grizzly tale.
It’s clear on that album that he didn’t care at all about making it commercial or approachable or any of those traits commonly associated with an artist’s cultural best moment. But given that Reed’s fans were already locked into his strange world, they seemed to see the value in it, allowing this difficult album to live on in musical infamy.
But in Reed’s own eyes, a different album beat it. While it might be expected that the artist would consider the 1973 bold concept album his best storytelling work, he actually thought he improved upon it in 2011 with Lulu, his unlikely collaboration with Metallica.
It all goes back to his ultimate aim as a writer. “In my conceit, I thought, what if Tennessee Williams had got a crack at this? Can’t it be A Streetcar Named Desire that’s a rock record? Why isn’t anyone doing it? Instead of writing the trash that is out there. I wanted to do something on that level, always,” he told The Telegraph, looking towards writers and playwrights for inspiration as he constantly dared himself to go deeper into almost literary storytelling. Given the fact that his origin story connected to an English class and an inspirational teacher, Reed being motivated by grander forms of literature comes as no surprise.
“I came close on Berlin. Pretty close,” he said before adding, “But this one, for me, from beginning to end, this is it.” Honouring Lulu as his own best work, he saw it as a mission complete or an achievement hit, decades on from his first attempt.
