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Avg: 4.0 (38 ratings)
- Date Released: January 1, 1975
- Genre: Rock/Pop
- Style: Rock
- Label: Buddha Records
- Copyright: (P) 2000 BMG Entertainment
Mess...or masterpiece? You decide.
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We Say...
Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music belongs in that weird pantheon of albums, like Trout Mask Replica and Skip Spence's Oar, that are heard about more than they are actually heard. At the time of its initial release in 1975, it was widely and almost immediately recognized and dismissed as a joke, punk cut-up Reed pulling a fast one on his label and getting them, on the heels of his huge pop success with "Walk on the Wild Side," to shell out for a record that was so unlistenable it would alienate the casual music fans who were doot-doot-dooting along with the "colored girls" in between back-to-back blocks of Uriah Heep and the J. Geils Band. You can almost imagine a gaunt Reed sucking on a cigarette and snidely chuckling, "Can you believe I actually got them to pay for this piece of shit?"
A funny thing, though: in the years since its release, Metal Machine Music has actually grown in stature. It's become a touchstone for bands like Sonic Youth and Nine Inch Nails, has been placed at the forefront of the fuck-you New York No Wave scene, and has been classified alongside musique concrete composers like Stockhausen. It's even been covered, most recently by the Zeitkratzer Orchestra. Owning it and speaking highly of it has almost become a badge of honor among the willfully avant-garde.
So which is it: masterpiece or put-on? Even Reed himself has taken both tacks, dismissing it in some interviews ("If you make it to side four, you're even stupider than I am," he once famously quipped) and defending it in others. In fact, his refusal to take a position is one of the things that makes the record so fascinating. Because it's a kind of musical version of tabula rasa, how you feel about it is, indeed, entirely up to you. There are no lyrics to react to, no melodies to dismiss as pedestrian. It's just guitars placed in front of jacked-up amplifiers, so close that the resulting feedback vibrates the strings — thus causing the guitars to play themselves. Think of it as a kind of sonic Jackson Pollock: if order emerges from the chaos, it's haphazard, thus making its beauty that much more surprising and engaging. In truth, the way you feel about it may vary depending on the day you listen to it. Those feedback squalls are like straight, clean lines shooting up into the air, rigid as steel bamboo, tangling the higher they get towards heaven. Tones come and go, a deafening drill-like sound bores through the center then vanishes. The ear-splitting upper-register notes collect in a far corner then dissipate. You get lost inside these notes the same way you'd get lost inside a metal-pressing plant after midnight. It's four sides of the same basic thing, but each stray squiggle of sound — unplanned and unforced — adds a kind of character and distinction.
Or, it could just be really fucking aggravating.
In the end, Metal Machine Music isn't about the contents, it's about the concept. It's about having the freedom and the wide berth to indulge your pop impulses while still maintaining a mean streak that pounds like a migraine. It's about edging the populace a little bit to the left, and about using newfound commercial attention to challenge, to upend and to confront. It's about realizing the old adage that maybe the only way to change the machine is from the inside-out. It's about not being afraid of the center, and teaching the center not to be afraid of the fray. Metal Machine Music is a wiley, ragged, monster of a record, a dark, sustained shriek from the middle of the moneyed mainstream, and unquestionable proof that aligning with a major label does not have to mean sacrificing your values. -
They Say...
On this CD re-issue of the original 1975 RCA records disc, we hear an unrelenting, seeringly beautiful electro-acoustic composition for electric guitar and an array of "consumer-priced" sound-processing devices and amplifiers used by most bands of the mid-70's...inspired by La Monte Young's Dream Music installations, this one-time spontaneous production of Reed's pre-dated a great deal of rock-sound inspired new music (Branca, Chatham etc.) ...feedback and a lot of the Keith Richards-effect (maximum volume through small speakers) which lends a feeling of infinite universal and atomic surface compression permeating everything ..."Passion-realism was the key" is the significant line from the otherwise rather posed liner notes...sudden silences leave the listener floating.
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| 01. |  |
Metal Machine Music, Part I |
16:03 |
|
| 02. | |
Metal Machine Music, Part II |
15:50 |
|
| 03. | |
Metal Machine Music, Part III |
16:07 |
|
| 04. | |
Metal Machine Music, Part IV |
15:56 |
|
04 Total Tracks, 63:56 Total Length
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Credits
- Lou Reed - Guitar // Lou Reed - Keyboards // Lou Reed - Vocals // Lou Reed - Producer // Lou Reed - Main Performer // John Hudson - Product Manager // Bob Ludwig - Digital Remastering // David Fricke - Liner Notes // Bill Stafford - Project Coordinator // Dana Renert - Project Coordinator // Rob Santos - Reissue Producer // Stephanie Kika - Project Coordinator // Traci Werbel - Production Assistant // Jeremy Holiday - Production Coordination // Tom Tierney - Production Assistant // Felicia Gearhart - Project Coordinator // Robin Manning - Project Coordinator // Larry Parra - Project Coordinator // Steve Strauss - Production Assistant // Robin Diamond - Project Coordinator // Brooke Nochomson - Project Coordinator // Brad Conger - Redesign
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