Customer Reviews

Metal Machine Music

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(28)

 

 

$!%^@$!%^@$!%^@$!^%@RTQCRWQGFWGHQWF&^!%^%!^%^!%!&^%!&^%&^%!^%&^!%^!&^!%^&T!YTWYWYWF!*&Q^!&*^@!&*@^!*(&@^!&*@^!&*@^!IUHKJQHWKQJHWJKQHWQWQWQW GFHGWFEYTTQWRCE!UDGWKQDUBQOIUDBO!(*@B&~*#&B~O*#&~UH~BH!(*~Y#~UY#UI~P&#*~:UJKL~!:UI@U~:!O(~IOUIO:!&@()*():( If you enjoyed reading this, and perhaps derived something meaningful from it, while gaining a deeper insight into mankind, well then this album is for you!

Sorry, but I had a profound spiritual experience when I heard this album all the way through for the first time (I'd previously heard a few snippets of it on Dr. Demento). Like another reviewer said, this album sounds exactly like the inside of my head. I never knew someone else on earth heard that sound, and Lou actually captured it, whether on purpose or not.

The best pranks run so amok that nothing is ever the same again. Metal Machine Music is such a prank. It was the beginning of the end of rock's tyranny over the cutting edge. It's the reason I traded in Bob Dylan for Aphex Twin as my favorite artist. It was one of the defining moments of a career that defined the term "anti-hero." It's punishing in a good way. Thank-you-sir-may-I-have-another!

This album provides astonishingly accurate insights into the global economics of today's multinational financial institutions. How Reed was able to predict future events in such a highly accurate manner is both intriguing and frightening. An essential, timely piece which everyone interested in global financial politics should listen to immediately.

There are several reasons why Lou Reed earned the epithet "The Godfather of Punk." There's his work with the Velvet Underground, especially the insanely acerbic White Light/White Heat. There's the subject matter of his songs...scoring dope, S&M, heroin, hedonism, amphetamines. There's his appetite for intoxicants which could rival Hunter S. Thompson's. However, "releasing" this album into RCA's loving hands has to be at or near the top of the list. This is the rock and roll equivalent of Marcel Duchamp putting a urinal in a museum and calling it art.

Yes, Lou did use MMM to get out of his contract with his record company. And yes, there are those who can stretch their definition of art enough to encompass this sonic experiment. Ambient music has its fans, to be sure. But the real point of MMM is that Reed proved himself willing to do _anything_, even risking career suicide by releasing it. I admire Lou Reed to no end. However, when it comes to Metal Machine Music, I've never owned a copy, even though I'm glad it exists.

It's odd. No matter how bad some albums are - even if the artist envisioned them as such - there are people out there who will champion them as works of genius. This is better as a concept. Instead of putting out an album of rock songs, folk songs, acoustic songs, poetry readings, whatever - Lou gives us 60 minutes of electronic noise. Funny, unless you sit through the thing. The idea is good, but being there to experience it is not. Some might think it's clever to subject their friends to this next time their friends come over, but anyone who would do so probably has no friends. Enjoy the idea, skip the album - buy something by the Shaggs if unlistenable music is your thing.

Whether Reed meant this as a joke on his record company, a joke on critics, a joke on his fans, or all of the above may never be known. What is known is that the album is a joke, and a monumentally unfunny one at that.

It's a double album of feedback and that's all. A better bet is White Light/White Heat.

This is easily most unlistenable album ever recorded, which is saying a lot given the tripe that is out there. Obviously Reed was either 1) playing a joke on the public or 2) trying to get even with his record company. Save yourself a lot of money and pass this one by. You can always scrap a fork across a chalk board and get a more pleasant sound.

"The lyrical interpretation at 13:12 of part 3 are just the greatest.Also that minor 3rd resolution from the C minor puts it all in focus" This is the kind of nonsense some critics breathed into this turkey.Now for the real news.This was Lou's giant F#$k You to a rotten label (RCA)and a joke on his fans.Why the 1 star? Lets get real here folks.This is not a Lester Bangs inspired trek into genius,it is a commercial suicide attempt.If Lou was really serious,he would have made "Metal Machine Music...The Sequel" instead of "Coney Island Baby" as his next album.A must hear for the bored,the pretentious, and the certifiable.

It is hard to add something original after all the other reviews on this page (someones very good, indeed) but I try to tell you about my own experience. I bought this record and I put it on the Cd player at my car. I hardly stand it the next five days, always listening to it, everytime I catch the car to go anywhere. My friends avoid me, telling me I was insane. I carry a girl who was hitch hiking on the road, and she was the only who liked it. Anyway, on the sixth day listenig to it, really having a very bad time, my ears opened up and the sound, the pure sound of great melodies hidden under all the noise filled my brain. Now I enjoy MMM very much. I mean, it is a far different experience from Transformer or Ecstasy or any other of his "normal" albums (except maybe White light/White heat, a very noisy one too), but is curious and can open your mind to instrumental music, and noise music (every Sonic Youth fan must love this album). Read also the "notation" of Lou on the cover, saying that his intention in doing music was not write abot sex, drugs and violence. I think it is the first time an artist explains an album on the cover. Other thing I must say is that Lou developed this album mainly to get rid of the record contract with RCA, and that he considers (I don`t know if today he thinks the same) it is just a bad joke and noise with no sense at all. Well, I think different. Sorry, Lou