Lou's Revolutionary Album Composed Completely with Feedback. Generally Regarded as Either the Greatest Album of all Time Or the Worst, Depending on Your Vantage Point. all Original Cover Art is Restored on this Edition.
Lou's Revolutionary Album Composed Completely with Feedback. Generally Regarded as Either the Greatest Album of all Time Or the Worst, Depending on Your Vantage Point. all Original Cover Art is Restored on this Edition.
CD Reviews
Punishing in a good way
M. Hilton | Indianapolis, IN United States | 11/13/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"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!"
Unlistenable
M. Rowton | 06/17/2006
(1 out of 5 stars)
"The title "Metal Machine Music" is two-thirds accurate. The sounds on this CD do indeed suggest noise made by a metal machine, but there is absolutely no music here.
"Metal Machine Music" is largely a joke Lou Reed unleashed on his record company many years ago but it has become one that record companies, who have been actually issuing this on CD, have been having on the public, or at least a small faction of the public, who have this neurotic need to pretend they actually like this tripe so they can set themselves apart from the contemptible masses who settle for more commercial sounding music. In an age where "American Idol" is the mainstream this need might be somewhat understandable, but "Metal Machine Music" takes this entirely too far.
Like the Shaggs, "Metal Machine Music" is unlistenable "music" that appeals to people who like to pretend they like something that nobody else does. Of the two the Shaggs at least have an innocence and an honesty that is completely and totally lacking in this contrived, preposterous, and utterly cynical exercise. Listen to the sound clips available here and you have heard everthing this CD has to offer."
Drill your teeth clean
JohnnyD | Brentwood, NY USA | 01/28/2007
(1 out of 5 stars)
""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."
Buyer Beware
Mike Rhakabit | Long beach | 05/15/2006
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Not a great album, but none the less a good one on it's own terms. This album is the epitome of being an artist, and one should go in and know that this is a museum piece, not a cruising on a saturday night piece. All I know is, i've drawn on it as an influence, though I don't know what a good idea it was as an entire album. But seriously, outside of Zappa, who else ever would have had the balls to make this album? And who else could have pulled it off like Reed?"
Track Listings (4) - Disc #1