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Classic Album Review: Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music
The most common reason a major artist will record a deliberately bad or offensive album is to get out of a contract. To fulfill the contract terms, Van Morrison once recorded an album of short half-ass tunes. The label went ahead and released it, but luckily he created a body of work that earned a reputation that wasn't damaged by that. The Stones recorded a single about a young male hustler called C--------r Blues that gave the label the last release required by contract, which was taboo in its time but relatively tame by today's standards.
This album is awarded the prestigious title of most infamous because it wasn't merely bad or obscene. It was because it was so irritating that even the most ardent fans of the artist couldn't listen to it straight through. There's no naughty language, titillation, or even a bad joke. It was created as a deliberate act of demolition.
That is Lou Reeds' "Metal Machine Music," a double album that went out of print so fast that most New York heroin addicts hadn't regained consciousness fast enough to get to the record store, so copies were going for as much as fifty dollars. It was almost universally panned and wrecked his artistic reputation for a time.
It was the Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees' "Sgt. Pepper" Movie soundtrack times ten. It had the same nuclear blast radius as Milli Vanilli and caused as much bewilderment as banjo covers of Led Zeppelin songs. If you Google it, there are a lot of explanations and purported theories behind the music, but all that intellectual mumbo jumbo was probably designed to keep his label from suing him. It was about destroying his then-successful "Rock And Roll Animal" persona.
It wasn't that alien to me at the time. My record collection included experimental works by Stockhausen, Cage, Terry Riley, and others, though I only would purchase those if in a used record store dollar bin. John Cage records sometimes went for fifty cents, and his infamous "Phonograph Music" was a bargain at that price. He and a collaborator dragged a phonograph needle over various surfaces to produce "music" that, sadly enough, wasn't the success that later New Age recordings of whale songs or windmills were, though the results were arguably more listenable than a Nickelback album.
I bought Metal Machine Music as a cutout for one dollar. I did listen all the way through, but the coolness factor drastically dropped off after the second listen, though I will say it had a very cool cover picture of Lou Reed.
I've re-listened to it and have provided a track-by-track description. If you like electronic music, give it a listen on YouTube. I'm talking in relative terms here, but it was better than John and Yoko's avant-garde recordings. If it had a sense of humor, I'd have ranked it equal to Butthole Surfers or Sonic Youth records.
Metal Machine Music Part 1: A oscillating drone with squealing sounds that sound a lot like seagulls. One can smell the invigorating salty spray of the sea. Others might reach for a can of WD-40 because they think a door hinge is sticking. There are no wrong answers here.
Metal Machine Music Part 2: The oscillation continues, but the seagull solos have given way to what sounds like a chorus and orchestra rehearsing tuning up sounds in the background. After receiving a revelation that your avocado toast looks like the Virgin Mary, this number is the perfect soundtrack for your new spiritual life. Please prepare yourself.
Metal Machine Music Part 3: Sounds a lot like Part 2. I suspect that this is yet another double LP that should have a single disc!
Metal Machine Music Part 4: I can see that Lou is amping up the energy level for the avant-garde music climax! There are distorted keyboard-like sounds, the ghostly voices are higher pitched, and for a few seconds, he's forgotten himself and added a hint of melody! While it doesn't reach the supreme heights of the final movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, it's at least shorter than the ending of a heavy metal song.
Many artists claim that their music is uncompromising and uncommercial, but give Lou Reed credit, he had the cajones to do it, and after all of the furor he created, the album is still in print. Give it five stars for sheer punk attitude, though listening to it remains optional.
Al Handa
February 2023
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