I guess I never was that good at knowing what was popular and what wasn't. In my defense all I can say is that my tastes were formed at a young age and I was doomed into a kind of elitist snobbery before I was even old enough to know better. It's really my older brother's fault, not mine. It was his record collection that I first started mining in search of musical gems, and I can't be blamed for his liking everything from Tom T. Hall to Jimi Hendrix can I?
It was in his collection that I first discovered Nashville Skyline, Music From Big Pink, The Basement Tapes, Pearl, and people with names like Jerry Jeff Walker, Kris Kristofferson, Arlo Guthrie, Earl Scruggs & Lester Flatt, and some guy named Hank Williams. So at the same time that most of my friends - this was 1974 -75 - were starting to get into disco and whatever else was being pushed on the popular radio, I was developing a taste for music that nobody else I knew listened to. I didn't do it on purpose as I was completely at my brother's mercy when it came to music. I could either learn to like what he played in our basement, or go upstairs and hang out with my parents.
Of course there were times when I was able to explore his record collection on my own, and it was during one of those expeditions that I stumbled across a very singular record that was simply called Berlin. I suppose most people's first exposure to Lou Reed was either by hearing "Walk On The Wild Side" or "Sweet Jane" on the radio, but for me it was the beautiful horror of listening to 
Caroline's fall into junkie oblivion over the two sides of that record that introduced me to his genius. I'm sure part of the attraction was the fact that it talked openly about drug use and sex, subjects that in the early seventies were still mainly taboo and would naturally attract the attention of a twelve year old male on the cusp of puberty.
Of course it was more than my recently inflamed hormones getting a few cheap thrills, as the music was intense and the lyrics had a kind brooding poetry to them that drew you into the story with a kind of seductive charm. In many ways Berlin was a darker version of the Christopher Isherwood stories that formed the basis for the movie Cabaret, as the album explored the life and downfall of a free spirited woman living in Berlin in the days of The Wall.
Article comments
1 - JC Mosquito
Brilliant? Depressing? A lost masterpiece? Or simply overrated?
Perhaps one, none, or all of the above - Lou always wanted to have it all not just sometimes, but all of the time. Good thing he's got the material to justify his explorations and perspectives.