Metal Machine Music

Metal Machine Music (subtitled *The Amine β Ring) is the fifth studio album by American rock musician Lou Reed. It was recorded on a three-speed Uher machine and was mastered/engineered by Bob Ludwig. It was released as a double album in July 1975 by RCA Records, but taken off the market three weeks later.

While the album sold 100,000 copies on release, it quickly became the most returned album in RCA’s history, leading them to pull the record from distribution. The album cost Reed his reputation in the music industry and was panned by critics. Simultaneously, it opened the door for some of his later, more experimental material. In 2008, Reed, Ulrich Krieger, and Sarth Calhoun collaborated to tour playing free improvisation inspired by the album as Metal Machine Trio. In 2011, Reed released a remastered version of Metal Machine Music.

Style

A major influence on Reed's recording, for which he tuned all the guitar strings to the same note, was the mid-1960s drone music work of La Monte Young's Theatre of Eternal Music, whose members included John Cale, Tony Conrad, Angus MacLise and Marian Zazeela. Both Cale and MacLise were also members of Reed's band the Velvet Underground (MacLise left before the group began recording).

The Theatre of Eternal Music's just intonation harmonies, sustained notes, and loud amplification influenced Cale's subsequent contribution to the Velvet Underground in his use of both unconventional harmony and feedback. A Table of the Elements release of The Theatre of Eternal Music's Inside the Dream Syndicate demonstrates the influence the mid-sixties experimental work of The Theatre of Eternal Music had on Reed years later.

In an interview with rock journalist Lester Bangs, Reed stated that he "had also been listening to Xenakis a lot." He also claimed that he had intentionally placed sonic allusions to classical works such as Beethoven's Eroica and Pastoral Symphonies in the distortion, and that he had attempted to have the album released on the RCA Red Seal classical label. He repeated the latter claim in a 2007 interview.

Critical reception

Contemporary reviews

Metal Machine Music confounded reviewers and listeners at the time, with the original 1975 RCA Victor LP edition being withdrawn within three weeks of its release. The Strangers Dave Segal later claimed it was one of the most divisive records ever, challenging both critics and the artist's core audience, similar to the reception of Miles Davis' Agharta album, which was issued around the same time.

Rock critic Lester Bangs wrote of Metal Machine Music: "as classical music it adds nothing to a genre that may well be depleted. As rock 'n' roll it's interesting garage electronic rock 'n' roll. As a statement it's great, as a giant FUCK YOU it shows integrity—a sick, twisted, dunced-out, malevolent, perverted, psychopathic integrity, but integrity nevertheless." Bangs later wrote a tongue-in-cheek article about the album, titled "The Greatest Album Ever Made", in which he judged it "the greatest record ever made in the history of the human eardrum". Village Voice critic Robert Christgau referred to Metal Machine Music as Reed's "answer to Environments" and said it had "certainly raised consciousness in both the journalistic and business communities" and was not "totally unlistenable", though he admitted for white noise he would rather listen to "Sister Ray". In the 1979 Rolling Stone Record Guide, critic Billy Altman said it was "a two-disc set consisting of nothing more than ear-wrecking electronic sludge, guaranteed to clear any room of humans in record time". The first issue of the first punk rock zine simply named Punk, featured Reed on the cover and claimed the album had presaged the advent of the punk movement.

Retrospective assessment

Reed biographer Victor Bockris wrote that the recording can be understood as "the ultimate conceptual punk album and the progenitor of New York punk rock". The album was ranked number two in the 1991 book The Worst Rock 'n' Roll Records of All Time by Jimmy Guterman and Owen O'Donnell. Writing in MusicHound Rock (1999), Greg Kot gave the album a "woof!" rating (signifying "dog-food"), and opined: "The spin cycle of a washing machine has more melodic variation than the electronic drone that was Metal Machine Music."

In 1998, The Wire included Metal Machine Music in its list of "100 Records That Set the World on Fire (While No One Was Listening)", with Brian Duguid writing:

In 2005, Q magazine included the album in a list of "Ten Terrible Records by Great Artists", and it ranked number four in Q list of the 50 worst albums of all time. It was again featured in Q in December 2010, on the magazine's "Top Ten Career Suicides" list, where it came eighth overall. The Trouser Press Record Guide referred to it as "four sides of unlistenable oscillator noise", parenthetically calling that assessment "a description, not a value judgment". Mark Deming's review for AllMusic said that while noise rock groups "have created some sort of context for it", Metal Machine Music "hasn't gotten any more user friendly with time", given it "paus[ed] only for side breaks with no rhythms, melodies, or formal structures to buffer the onslaught". Despite the intense criticism (or perhaps because of the exposure it generated), Metal Machine Music reportedly sold 100,000 copies in the US, according to the liner notes of the 2000 CD reissue by RCA/Buddah Records. Live recordings with (2007) and without (2014; all-acoustic) Reed are available commercially.

A few years later, Reed formed a band named Metal Machine Trio as an experimental side project.

Track listing

All music is composed by Lou Reed. Each track corresponds to an entire side on an LP.

On the original vinyl release, timings for sides 1–3 were stated as "16:01", while the 4th side read "16:01 or ∞", as the last groove on the LP was a continuous loop, known as the locked groove. On CD, this locked groove was imitated for the final 2:22 of the track, fading out at the end. On later CD, DVD, and Blu-Ray reissues, the tracks are retitled as "Part 1", "Part 2", "Part 3", and "Part 4."

References

Fricke, David (2000). Liner notes. Metal Machine Music by Lou Reed, 1975. Buddah Records 74465 99752 2 (reissue).

Citations

External links

A humorous essay on the 25th anniversary of Metal Machine Music (Archive.org)
Section on Metal Machine Music from Sangild article about (minimal) noise
Lester Bangs' review of the album for Creem