Music 'Why do I have to go through this?' I f for some masochistic reason you wish to experience the full force of Lou Reed's contempt, then try mentioning his concept album Berlin 's reputation as the most depressing album ever made. There is an ominous pause. "You know, I don't like to have to sit through interviews and hear that," the notoriously irascible Reed finally growls. "I consider it illiterate." Berlin , which was made in 1973 and is being staged in a European tour starting next week, tells the story of a promiscuous junkie mother with a violent boyfriend who kills herself after her children are taken into care. It is hardly designed to put a spring in the step of the listener, even by the standards of a songwriter whose work is amply versed in nihilism and depravity. Yet Reed argues, ill-temperedly but not altogether unreasonably, that Berlin is no gloomier than many books, plays or films. "What do you think the ending of Hamlet is?" he bristles. His laconic drawl rises pettishly. "I don't want to have to defend myself. Why do I have to go through this? I didn't write it for critics, I don't read critics and I don't want to have to respond to people I don't read or like in the first place. How much clearer can I make it?" Phew. Reed is a famously antagonistic interviewee whose booze- and drug-fuelled bouts with gonzo rock critics such as Lester Bangs in the