Lou Reed's solo albums
each have their proponents and opponents, with fans standing up for everything
from the avant-noise experiment Metal Machine Music to the post-Springsteen
mainstream-rock push Coney Island Baby. Reed's 1973 concept album Berlin is especially
controversial among Reed-ophiles, both for its prog-rock pretensions—it's
a song cycle about a drug-addicted German prostitute and her children, with
contributing performances by the likes of Steve Winwood and Jack
Bruce—and for its fashionable nihilism. Lester Bangs dubbed it "a
gargantuan slab of maggoty rancor," and those who enjoyed the more pop-minded Transformer by and large failed to
follow Reed on his journey into the colossally morose. Even Berlin's devotees have
complained over the years about the record's relatively punchless sound.
