“A lot of exotic stuff going on”: The Lou Reed album that became a “nightmare to make”
No album that Lou Reed has ever contributed to sounds like it was made in the most ideal of circumstances. From his early years in The Velvet Underground to his solo material from the 1970s through to his death in 2013, all of his material was made with the intention of being disarming and uncomfortable, and this is something that Reed himself appeared to take immense pride in.
The drug-fuelled insanity of The Velvet Underground’s material often took complete control over recording sessions, and while the looseness of their songs was ultimately part of their appeal, it also alienated plenty of listeners who couldn’t get beyond the impenetrable noise freakouts and experimental jams of some of their work. Ultimately, although they’ve gone on to achieve cult status and widespread notoriety, at the time, they were arguably just a struggling art band who nobody truly understood or took seriously.
However, not wishing to compromise on his own artistic visions, Reed chose not to make his solo work more agreeable, and instead, he decided to double down on its more difficult aspects. As an artist, he was never really afraid of what people might think of him, and while this notably made him seem hard to please as an individual, and especially hard to place into a box as a performer, it was what made him unmistakable.
There are plenty of lyrics in his songs throughout his career that tell of the struggles that were going on in his own life and in the scene around him, and all of them speak about discomfort in some sense. However, there aren’t many more uncomfortable or harder to listen to than his 1973 album, Berlin. Focusing on a narrative that tells of the crumbling relationship between two drug addicts and presenting it as a rock opera, you can understand why people may have thought this was a bold move considering the accessible nature of his previous album, Transformer, but it’s evident that Reed was not going to back down from pursuing this.
He wasn’t the one to admit that the recording sessions were difficult though, and instead, this admission comes courtesy of producer Bob Ezrin. Considering Reed had been responsible for producers walking out of sessions in the past, Ezrin must have known he was taking on a huge task working with him, but because of how on board he was with Reed’s vision for the record, it was clear that he wanted to make it into a masterpiece, no matter how gruelling it would become.
In an interview with Performing Songwriter in 2014, Ezrin confirmed that it was “a nightmare” to make Berlin. “Much of that came from the otherworldly nature of the world of Lou Reed. Lou Reed is a true New York artist, with all the trappings that go along with that. He had a coterie of strange friends, and a lifestyle that was weird to a simple Canadian boy like myself, who was just finding his way in the international world of music. There was a lot of exotic stuff going on around me that kind of undermined my sense of familiarity and comfort.”
As tricky as he may have found the situation, it turned out to ultimately be worth it. Despite mixed reviews at the time, like much of Reed’s work, the test of time has served it well, and it’s gone on to lead the life of a stone-cold classic that proves how he wasn’t worth questioning as an artist.
