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{{for|the 2015 album by Die Krupps|V – Metal Machine Music{{!}}''V – Metal Machine Music''}} | |||
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{{Infobox album | {{Infobox album | ||
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'''''Metal Machine Music''''' (subtitled '''''*The Amine β Ring''''') is the fifth [[studio album]] by American [[rock music]]ian [[Lou Reed]]. It was recorded on a three-speed [[Uher (brand)|Uher machine]] and was mastered/engineered by [[Bob Ludwig]].<ref>[[Alan Licht]], ''Common Tones: Selected Interviews with Artists and Musicians 1995-2020'', [[Blank Forms]] Edition, ''Interview with Lou Reed'', p. 163</ref> It was released as a double album in July 1975 by [[RCA Records]], but taken off the market three weeks later.<ref | '''''Metal Machine Music''''' (subtitled '''''*The Amine β Ring''''') is the fifth [[studio album]] by American [[rock music]]ian [[Lou Reed]]. It was recorded on a three-speed [[Uher (brand)|Uher machine]] and was mastered/engineered by [[Bob Ludwig]].<ref name="Common Tones p. 163">[[Alan Licht]], ''Common Tones: Selected Interviews with Artists and Musicians 1995-2020'', [[Blank Forms]] Edition, ''Interview with Lou Reed'', p. 163</ref> It was released as a double album in July 1975 by [[RCA Records]], but taken off the market three weeks later.<ref name="Common Tones p. 163"/> A radical departure from the rest of his catalog, ''Metal Machine Music'' features no songs or recognizably structured compositions, eschewing [[melody]] and [[rhythm]] for modulated [[feedback]] and [[noise music]] guitar effects, mixed at varying speeds by Reed. Also in 1975, RCA released a [[Quadrophonic]] version of the ''Metal Machine Music'' recording that was produced by playing it back both forward and backward, and by flipping the tape over.<ref>[[Alan Licht]], ''Common Tones: Selected Interviews with Artists and Musicians 1995-2020'', [[Blank Forms]] Edition, ''Interview with Lou Reed'', p. 164</ref> | ||
The album cost Reed his reputation in the [[music industry]] and has generally been [[List of music considered the worst|panned by critics]] since its release. Simultaneously, it opened the door for some of his later, more [[experimental music|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.''<ref name="tourremaster">{{cite news |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63J47O20100420 |title=Lou Reed is back with experimental music of 1970s |work=Reuters |date=April 20, 2010 |access-date=April 20, 2010}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.themortonreport.com/entertainment/music/lou-reed-reissues-newly-remastered-metal-machine-music/|title=Lou Reed Reissues Newly Remastered Metal Machine Music|last=Rowe|first=Matt|date=2011-06-08|website=The Morton Report|language=en|access-date=2019-11-30}}</ref> | The album cost Reed his reputation in the [[music industry]] and has generally been [[List of music considered the worst|panned by critics]] since its release. Simultaneously, it opened the door for some of his later, more [[experimental music|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.''<ref name="tourremaster">{{cite news |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63J47O20100420 |title=Lou Reed is back with experimental music of 1970s |work=Reuters |date=April 20, 2010 |access-date=April 20, 2010}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.themortonreport.com/entertainment/music/lou-reed-reissues-newly-remastered-metal-machine-music/|title=Lou Reed Reissues Newly Remastered Metal Machine Music|last=Rowe|first=Matt|date=2011-06-08|website=The Morton Report|language=en|access-date=2019-11-30}}</ref> | ||
==Style== | ==Style== | ||
A major influence on Reed's recording, for which he tuned all the guitar strings to the same note,<ref>[[Alan Licht]], ''Common Tones: Selected Interviews with Artists and Musicians 1995-2020'', [[Blank Forms]] Edition, ''Interview with Lou Reed'', pp.170</ref> was the mid-1960s [[drone music]] work of [[La Monte Young]]'s [[Theatre of Eternal Music]],<ref | A major influence on Reed's recording, for which he tuned all the guitar strings to the same note,<ref name="Common Tones pp.170">[[Alan Licht]], ''Common Tones: Selected Interviews with Artists and Musicians 1995-2020'', [[Blank Forms]] Edition, ''Interview with Lou Reed'', pp.170</ref> was the mid-1960s [[drone music]] work of [[La Monte Young]]'s [[Theatre of Eternal Music]],<ref name="Common Tones pp.170"/><ref>[http://www.allmusic.com/album/metal-machine-music-mw0000099717 "Blue" Gene Tyranny on Lou Reed Metal Machine Music]</ref> whose members included [[John Cale]], [[Tony Conrad]], [[Angus MacLise]] and [[Marian Zazeela]].<ref>The album listed (misspelling included) "Drone cognizance and harmonic possibilities vis a vis Lamont<!--"Lamont", sic--> Young's Dream Music" among its "Specifications": [http://www.gutsofdarkness.com/god/objet.php?objet=7406 text copy], [http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=748918 image copy (reissue)].</ref> 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. Recent releases of works by Cale and Conrad from the mid-sixties, such as Cale's ''Inside the Dream Syndicate'' series (''The Dream Syndicate'' being the alternative name given by Cale and Conrad to their collective work with Young) testify to the influence this mid-sixties experimental work had on Reed years later. | 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. Recent releases of works by Cale and Conrad from the mid-sixties, such as Cale's ''Inside the Dream Syndicate'' series (''The Dream Syndicate'' being the alternative name given by Cale and Conrad to their collective work with Young) testify to the influence this mid-sixties experimental work had on Reed years later. | ||
| Line 32: | Line 32: | ||
==Critical reception== | ==Critical reception== | ||
{{ | {{Music ratings | ||
| rev1 = [[AllMusic]] | | rev1 = [[AllMusic]] | ||
| rev1Score = {{rating|1|5}}<ref name=amg>Deming, Mark. [https://www.allmusic.com/album/metal-machine-music-mw0000099717 Lou Reed ''Metal Machine Music'']. [[AllMusic]]. Retrieved July 14, 2022.</ref> | | rev1Score = {{rating|1|5}}<ref name=amg>Deming, Mark. [https://www.allmusic.com/album/metal-machine-music-mw0000099717 Lou Reed ''Metal Machine Music'']. [[AllMusic]]. Retrieved July 14, 2022.</ref> | ||
| Line 54: | Line 54: | ||
| rev10Score = C<ref>{{cite web|url=https://tomhull.com/ocston/nm/get_gl.php?n=lou+reed|title=Grade List: Lou Reed|website=[[Tom Hull – on the Web]]|first=Tom|last=Hull|date=November 13, 2023|access-date=November 13, 2023}}</ref> | | rev10Score = C<ref>{{cite web|url=https://tomhull.com/ocston/nm/get_gl.php?n=lou+reed|title=Grade List: Lou Reed|website=[[Tom Hull – on the Web]]|first=Tom|last=Hull|date=November 13, 2023|access-date=November 13, 2023}}</ref> | ||
}}<!--List Automatically Moved by DASHBot--> | }}<!--List Automatically Moved by DASHBot--> | ||
'' | === 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.<ref name=":0">{{cite web |title=BBC - Music - Review of Lou Reed - Metal Machine Music: Re-mastered |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/wzwx}}</ref> ''[[The Stranger (newspaper)|The Stranger]]''{{'}}s 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)|Agharta]]'' album, which was issued around the same time.<ref>{{cite news|last=Segal |first=Dave |year=2015 |url=http://www.thestranger.com/blogs/slog/2015/08/07/22652149/two-of-the-most-divisive-lps-of-all-timemiles-daviss-agharta-and-lou-reeds-metal-machine-musicare-now-40-years-old |title=Two of the Most Divisive LPs of All Time—Miles Davis's Agharta and Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music—Are Now 40 Years Old |newspaper=[[The Stranger (newspaper)|The Stranger]] |location=Seattle |access-date=May 15, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160516014603/http://www.thestranger.com/blogs/slog/2015/08/07/22652149/two-of-the-most-divisive-lps-of-all-timemiles-daviss-agharta-and-lou-reeds-metal-machine-musicare-now-40-years-old |archive-date=May 16, 2016 |url-status=live |df=mdy }}</ref> | |||
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".<ref>Bangs, Lester. [http://www.rocknroll.net/loureed/articles/mmmbangs.html "The Greatest Album Ever Made"]. ''[[Creem]]'', March 1976</ref> | |||
''[[Rolling Stone]]'' magazine reviewed the album as sounding like "the tubular groaning of a galactic refrigerator" and as displeasing to experience as "a night in a [[Bus station|bus terminal]]".<ref>Wolcott, James. [https://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/metal-machine-music-19750814 Rolling Stone Review]. August 14, 1975.</ref> 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". (This aspect of the album is mentioned in the [[Bruce Sterling]] short story "Dori Bangs".) The first issue of the first [[Punk zine|punk rock zine]] simply named [[Punk (magazine)|''Punk'']], featured Reed on the cover and claimed the album had presaged the advent of the punk movement. | |||
''[[Village Voice]]'' critic [[Robert Christgau]] referred to ''Metal Machine Music'' as Reed's "answer to ''[[Environments (album series)|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]]".<ref name="CG" /> | |||
=== Retrospective assessment === | |||
Writing in ''[[MusicHound|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''."<ref name="Kot/MH">Gary Graff & Daniel Durchholz (eds), ''MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide'', Visible Ink Press (Farmington Hills, MI, 1999; {{ISBN|1-57859-061-2}}), p. 931.</ref> | |||
In 2005, [[Q (magazine)|''Q'' magazine]] included the album in a list of "Ten Terrible Records by Great Artists", and it ranked number four in ''Q''{{'s}} 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".<ref>{{cite web |title=Lou Reed |url=http://www.trouserpress.com/entry.php?a=lou_reed |access-date=August 2, 2010 |publisher=TrouserPress.com}}</ref> | |||
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".<ref name="amg" /> | |||
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.<ref>{{cite web |title=Rocklist.net...Steve Parker...Slipped Discs |url=http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/steveparker/slipped_discs.htm |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060516033710/http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/steveparker/slipped_discs.htm |archive-date=May 16, 2006 |access-date=August 2, 2010 |publisher=Rocklistmusic.co.uk}}</ref> | |||
In 1998, ''[[The Wire (magazine)|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: | |||
{{blockquote|''Q'' magazine featured ''Metal Machine Music'' in its 50 Worst Records of All Time ... What higher recommendation could you possibly need? ... [''Metal Machine Music''] is at once the pre-eminent deranged noise record, an impossibly cacophonous screech of electric torment, and also a classic of [[Minimal music|Minimalism]]; some of the most enigmatic, exquisite harmonies ever documented. It's a pity the CD reissues can't include the original double LP's [[Unusual types of gramophone records#Sound recorded in locked grooves|locked groove]], but even if it doesn't last forever, the music is infinitely convoluted. It still awaits a proper critical reappraisal—even the gleefully enthusiastic Lester Bangs didn't fully 'get' ''Metal Machine Music''.<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Duguid |first=Brian |title=100 Records That Set the World on Fire (While No One Was Listening) — Lou Reed ''Metal Machine Music'' (RCA 1975, Reissued Great Expectations 1991) |date=September 1998 |magazine=[[The Wire (magazine)|The Wire]] |issue=175 |page=36 |location=London |url=https://reader.exacteditions.com/issues/35224/page/36 |url-access=subscription |via=[[Exact Editions]]}}</ref>}} | |||
In a December 2017 review, Mark Richardson of ''[[Pitchfork (website)|Pitchfork]]'' gave ''Metal Machine Music'' a score of 8.7 out of 10. He describes the album as an "exhilarating" listen.<ref name="Richardson/Pitchfork">{{cite web|url=https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/lou-reed-metal-machine-music/ |first=Mark|last=Richardson|title=Lou Reed: Metal Machine Music|website=[[Pitchfork (website)|Pitchfork]]|date=December 3, 2017|access-date=December 4, 2017}}</ref> 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]].<ref name=":0" /><!-- sic, the name is spelled "Buddah" -->. | |||
''' | |||
''' | ==Performance== | ||
Lou Reed did not perform ''Metal Machine Music'' on stage until March 2002, when he collaborated with an avant-garde classical ensemble at the [[MaerzMusik]] festival in Berlin. The 10-member group Zeitkratzer performed the original album with Reed in a new arrangement by [[Ulrich Krieger]], featuring classical string, wind, piano, and accordion.<ref>{{Cite news|title=Lou Reed's 'Metal Machine Music' gets live treatment in Berlin |last=James|first=Colin|date=October 11, 2005 |agency=[[Associated Press|AP]] |work=AP Worldstream |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-51420463.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924181326/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-51420463.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=September 24, 2015 |access-date=November 4, 2012}}</ref> Live recordings with (2007) and without (2014; all-acoustic) Reed are available commercially.<ref name="Richardson">{{cite web |last1=Richardson |first1=Mark |title=Zeitkratzer: Metal Machine Music |url=https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19662-zeitkratzer-metal-machine-music/ |website=Pitchfork |access-date=27 February 2019 |language=en}}</ref> | |||
A few years later, Reed formed a band named [[Metal Machine Trio]] as an experimental side project. | |||
==Track listing== | |||
{{Track listing | |||
| headline = Side one | |||
| all_music = [[Lou Reed]] | |||
| title1 = Metal Machine Music A-1 | |||
| length1 = 16:10 | |||
}} | |||
{{Track listing | |||
| headline = Side two | |||
| title1 = Metal Machine Music A-2 | |||
| length1 = 15:53 | |||
}} | |||
{{Track listing | |||
| headline = Side three | |||
| title1 = Metal Machine Music A-3 | |||
| length1 = 16:13 | |||
}} | |||
{{Track listing | |||
| headline = Side four | |||
| title1 = Metal Machine Music A-4 | |||
| length1 = 15:55 | |||
}} | |||
'''Note:''' On the original vinyl release, timings for sides 1–3 were stated as "16:01", while the 4th side read "16:01 or [[Infinity|∞]]", as the last groove on the LP was a continuous loop, known as the [[Unusual types of gramophone records#Sound recorded in locked grooves|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." | |||
'' | ==See also== | ||
* ''[[Arc (Neil Young & Crazy Horse album)|Arc]]'', a [[Neil Young]] and [[Crazy Horse (band)|Crazy Horse]] live album featuring an edited composition consisting of only feedback. | |||
==References== | ==References== | ||
| Line 105: | Line 123: | ||
==Further reading== | ==Further reading== | ||
* [[Paul Morley|Morley, Paul]]. "Metal Machine Music". ''Words and Music: A History of Pop in the Shape of a City''. London: [[Bloomsbury Publishing|Bloomsbury]], 2003. {{ISBN|0-7475-5778-0}} | * [[Paul Morley|Morley, Paul]]. "Metal Machine Music". ''Words and Music: A History of Pop in the Shape of a City''. London: [[Bloomsbury Publishing|Bloomsbury]], 2003. {{ISBN|0-7475-5778-0}} | ||
==External links== | ==External links== | ||
Latest revision as of 21:01, 17 November 2025
Script error: No such module "For". Template:Use mdy dates Script error: No such module "Unsubst-infobox". 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.[1] It was released as a double album in July 1975 by RCA Records, but taken off the market three weeks later.[1] A radical departure from the rest of his catalog, Metal Machine Music features no songs or recognizably structured compositions, eschewing melody and rhythm for modulated feedback and noise music guitar effects, mixed at varying speeds by Reed. Also in 1975, RCA released a Quadrophonic version of the Metal Machine Music recording that was produced by playing it back both forward and backward, and by flipping the tape over.[2]
The album cost Reed his reputation in the music industry and has generally been panned by critics since its release. 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.[3][4]
Style
A major influence on Reed's recording, for which he tuned all the guitar strings to the same note,[5] was the mid-1960s drone music work of La Monte Young's Theatre of Eternal Music,[5][6] whose members included John Cale, Tony Conrad, Angus MacLise and Marian Zazeela.[7] 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. Recent releases of works by Cale and Conrad from the mid-sixties, such as Cale's Inside the Dream Syndicate series (The Dream Syndicate being the alternative name given by Cale and Conrad to their collective work with Young) testify to the influence this mid-sixties experimental work 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.[8]
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.[9] The StrangerTemplate:'s 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.[10]
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".[11]
Rolling Stone magazine reviewed the album as sounding like "the tubular groaning of a galactic refrigerator" and as displeasing to experience as "a night in a bus terminal".[12] 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". (This aspect of the album is mentioned in the Bruce Sterling short story "Dori Bangs".) 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.
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".[13]
Retrospective assessment
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."[14]
In 2005, Q magazine included the album in a list of "Ten Terrible Records by Great Artists", and it ranked number four in QTemplate:'s 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".[15]
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".[16]
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.[17]
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:
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />
Q magazine featured Metal Machine Music in its 50 Worst Records of All Time ... What higher recommendation could you possibly need? ... [Metal Machine Music] is at once the pre-eminent deranged noise record, an impossibly cacophonous screech of electric torment, and also a classic of Minimalism; some of the most enigmatic, exquisite harmonies ever documented. It's a pity the CD reissues can't include the original double LP's locked groove, but even if it doesn't last forever, the music is infinitely convoluted. It still awaits a proper critical reappraisal—even the gleefully enthusiastic Lester Bangs didn't fully 'get' Metal Machine Music.[18]
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In a December 2017 review, Mark Richardson of Pitchfork gave Metal Machine Music a score of 8.7 out of 10. He describes the album as an "exhilarating" listen.[19] 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.[9].
Performance
Lou Reed did not perform Metal Machine Music on stage until March 2002, when he collaborated with an avant-garde classical ensemble at the MaerzMusik festival in Berlin. The 10-member group Zeitkratzer performed the original album with Reed in a new arrangement by Ulrich Krieger, featuring classical string, wind, piano, and accordion.[20] Live recordings with (2007) and without (2014; all-acoustic) Reed are available commercially.[21]
A few years later, Reed formed a band named Metal Machine Trio as an experimental side project.
Track listing
Template:Track listing Template:Track listing Template:Track listing Template:Track listing
Note: 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."
See also
- Arc, a Neil Young and Crazy Horse live album featuring an edited composition consisting of only feedback.
References
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- Fricke, David (2000). Liner notes. Metal Machine Music by Lou Reed, 1975. Buddah Records 74465 99752 2 (reissue).
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Citations
Further reading
- Morley, Paul. "Metal Machine Music". Words and Music: A History of Pop in the Shape of a City. London: Bloomsbury, 2003. Template:ISBN
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
- ↑ a b Alan Licht, Common Tones: Selected Interviews with Artists and Musicians 1995-2020, Blank Forms Edition, Interview with Lou Reed, p. 163
- ↑ Alan Licht, Common Tones: Selected Interviews with Artists and Musicians 1995-2020, Blank Forms Edition, Interview with Lou Reed, p. 164
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ a b Alan Licht, Common Tones: Selected Interviews with Artists and Musicians 1995-2020, Blank Forms Edition, Interview with Lou Reed, pp.170
- ↑ "Blue" Gene Tyranny on Lou Reed Metal Machine Music
- ↑ The album listed (misspelling included) "Drone cognizance and harmonic possibilities vis a vis Lamont Young's Dream Music" among its "Specifications": text copy, image copy (reissue).
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Bangs, Lester. "The Greatest Album Ever Made". Creem, March 1976
- ↑ Wolcott, James. Rolling Stone Review. August 14, 1975.
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
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- ↑ Template:Cite magazine
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".