Berlin

Lou Reed's third solo album following the demise of the Velvet Underground was Berlin, a concept album that represented a brave departure from the familiar sounds and themes of his previous blockbuster Transformer. Reed composed the album as a cohesive rock opera designed to be played live. In 2007 Lou Reed toured the album with a four-piece band, a thirty-piece orchestra, and a twelve-piece choir, giving some of the most personal, powerful, and memorable live performances of his career. The tour was filmed by legendary artist Julian Schnabel. This beautiful and immeasurably powerful book draws on stills from Julian Schnabel's film, photographs of the colourful and textured set design, the printed lyrics of Reed's original verse, and images from Lola Schnabel's melancholic projections to tell the twin stories of Berlin as rock opera, and Berlin as unique collaboration between two geniuses of contemporary art, music, words, and film. With personal contributions from Lou Reed and Julian Schnabel.

Lou Reed is a founding member of the Velvet Underground and an accomplished solo artist, poet, writer, and photographer. He lives in New York. Julian Schnabel is a celebrated artist and filmmaker whose work is in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum and MoMA in New York, and whose film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was nominated for four Academy Awards. He lives in New York.