Berlin

Ranked #344 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time. Berlin was Reed's third solo album, in drastic contrast to its predecessor, the glam rock Transformer. Featuring heavy ochestral arrangements and horn sections, Berlin features re-drafts of earlier compositions first penned by Reed's Velvet Underground.

Eternally 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