Lou Reed's Berlin

In walled-up ’70s Berlin, the West partied while the East remained dark, opaque, and forbidding. Might there be a relationship metaphor somewhere in there? Lou Reed saw one when he recorded 1973’s Berlin, a gloomy rock opera that’s gradually morphed from a critical punching bag into a well-respected entry in Reed’s voluminous discography. By 2006, the tide had turned enough that Lou Reed performed the album at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, and tapped artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel to capture the sets. 

Updated 07/16/2009