Favorite tracks: Masquerade, Tell Me Why, The Metro, Pleasure Victim
I think my first exposure to Berlin’s music was in 1984, hearing “No More Words” either on the radio or at a church youth dance. I later heard “Now It’s My Turn” in one of those same ways. In 1985, when I started to listen to the local New Wave station (KCGL 105.5 FM), I heard their song “Masquerade”, and it quickly became my favorite song. I bought their album Pleasure Victim on vinyl just for that song. I recorded it onto a cassette tape with songs by a bunch of other artists, and never really listened to the rest of the album until 2007.
Favorite tracks: Now It’s My Turn; Fall; Rumor of Love; Dancing in Berlin; Touch; In My Dreams; Beg, Steal or Borrow
Sometime during my first year of college (’85-’86), I bought their album Love Life, which in addition to “No More Words” and “Now It’s My Turn” had a bunch of other songs I ended up liking. It was very unusual for me to like every song on an album — the only other album I can think of at the time was Prince Charming by Adam & the Ants — which is why I tended to buy vinyl and record songs onto mix tapes.
Favorite tracks: Hideaway, Like Flames, You Don’t Know, When Love Goes to War, Will I Ever Understand You
Their 1986 album Count Three & Pray came out after I had already left on my two-year mission to Italy, so I didn’t know about it at the time. Also, the movie Top Gun came out while I was on my mission, so I missed their greatest success on the charts (“Take My Breath Away”, from the Top Gun soundtrack, which hit #1 in the US and various other countries).
In 1987, while I was still on my mission, Berlin disbanded.
Favorite tracks (not mentioned elsewhere): Blowin’ Sky High, Matter of Time, For All Tomorrow’s Lies
After I returned from my mission in the summer of 1988, I bought a CD player, and one of the first CDs I bought was Best of Berlin 1979-1988, which included some songs off Count Three & Pray, so I didn’t feel the need to go back and find it — which was kind of silly in a way, since I had liked every song on their previous album. But in those days if an album wasn’t in stock at your local record store, it was a bit of a hassle to order it in.
Favorite tracks: Who’s Gonna Take You Home Tonight, Go Ask the Lonely, Confession Time
In 1991, Terri Nunn released a solo album, Moment of Truth. I bought a CD maxi-single of a remix of “Take My Breath Away” that was released that same year, but I didn’t get around to buying her solo album until 2019.
After some legal wrangling, Terri Nunn got the rights to the name Berlin, and she re-formed the band with new musicians.
In 2000, I went to the Synthstock 2000 concert at the Rocky Mountain Raceway in Salt Lake. The headline act was Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), and Berlin was one of the other acts (along with Anything Box, Cosmic Moscow, and Real Life.) At the time, Berlin was a band I liked, but not my favorite band.
After almost a 16-year gap, Berlin released a new album in 2002: Voyeur. But I didn’t bother to get it, if I even knew it had come out.
In 2004, I ran across a remix album titled Berlin — The Greatest Hits Remixed. Since I love remixes, I bought it, and there were several that I liked a lot.
In 2005, Berlin released an album, 4play, that consisted mostly of covers of songs by other bands. That was their musical low point — when I eventually bought it, I didn’t particularly like anything from that album.
In 2006, I got an iPod, and a few months later I posted my top 25 most played songs. “Masquerade” was the only song by Berlin on that list, at #16.
Favorite tracks: Shiny, Blink of an Eye, Stronger Than Steel, Drug, With a Touch, All I Ever Need
In 2007, I finally got around to buying Voyeur. Several songs from that album quickly rose in my list of most-listened-to songs in iTunes. That encouraged me to pick up Count Three & Pray, and I found I loved some songs that hadn’t made it onto the Best of Berlin album. I also went back and listened to some of the songs I hadn’t originally paid much attention to on Pleasure Victim.
At some point after that, I did an analysis of my iTunes listening habits, and I found the top two bands I listened to were Garbage and Berlin. Since then, Berlin has pulled far ahead, and I hardly ever listen to Garbage anymore.
Favorite tracks: With the Lights On, Break the Chains, Nice to Meet You, Animal
In 2013, they released Animal, which had several songs I loved.
Favorite tracks: On My Knees, In My Heart, Transcendance, Majesty
After that, original band members Dave Diamond and John Crawford rejoined the band, and I eagerly bought their 2019 album Transcendance the day it came out. And it has one of my all-time favorite songs, “On My Knees”, which is absolutely gorgeous. I think it’s awesome that more than thirty years after their peak on the charts, they are still making brand new songs that I love.
Since they’d released an album in 2019, I was not expecting them to release anything in 2020. But to my surprise, they released Strings Attached, a box set of orchestral re-recordings of some of their greatest hits. It is my favorite album — not just by Berlin, but by anyone.
Currently, 11 out of my top 25 most-played songs* in iTunes are by Berlin, and I consider them my favorite band.
Now, here’s the difficult question: What is it about Berlin’s music that I love so much that they’ve become my favorite band?
And the answer is: I don’t know. Hmm, maybe it will sound better if I say it in a Frenchier manner: Berlin’s music has a certain je ne sais quoi. If I had more music education, I might be able tell you. Is it Terri Nunn’s vocals? No. Don’t get me wrong — I love her voice, but her non-Berlin album and the 4Play cover album had her voice, and none of those songs are high on my list of favorites. Plus, one of my favorite Berlin songs is “Rumor of Love”, which has John Crawford as the lead singer and if Terri’s in it, she’s just doing backup vocals. Is it their distinctive musical style? Maybe they have one, but I couldn’t tell you what it is. It’s not as distinctive as Erasure, for instance, who I tend to recognize even if I haven’t heard the song before. So basically it boils down to this: More than any other band, Berlin has a bunch of songs that I love to listen to over and over.
I’ve had several favorite bands over the years. I’ve also been to several concerts. But I’ve never been to see a concert by a band while they were my favorite band.
So, in September, I drove out to Lake Tahoe to see Berlin perform live at Bally’s Casino. (Darci was nice enough to humor me and come along.) And thus I finally got to see my favorite band in concert. I enjoyed the concert a lot, and I’ll probably go again if they come to Utah.
*Excluding Russian songs, because I went through a phase for several years starting in 2008 where I mostly listened to Russian technopop.