A concept album as terrifying as it is sublime, Lou Reed describes in this decadent Berlin the long descent into hell of a junkie couple, Caroline and Jim. Light-years away from the very New Yorkish Transformer released a year earlier, the former leader of the Velvet Underground orchestrates here a morbid, almost baroque symphony, which he counterbalances with more stripped-down but equally bleak ballads. In his grand cabaret of ultimate depression, Lou is a perfect master of ceremonies, cynically delightful and Faustian to the fingertips.