''Metal Machine Music'' (subtitled ''*The Amine β Ring'') is the fifth

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...

by American

rock music Rock is a Music genre, genre of popular music that originated in the United States as "rock and roll" in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of styles from the mid-1960s, primarily in the United States and the United Kingdo ...

ian

Lou Reed Lewis Allan Reed (March 2, 1942October 27, 2013) was an American musician and songwriter. He was the guitarist, singer, and principal songwriter for the rock band the Velvet Underground and had a solo career that spanned five decades. Althoug ...

. It was recorded on a three-speed Uher machine and was mastered/engineered by

Bob Ludwig Robert Carl Ludwig (born December 11, 1944), is a retired American mastering engineer. He mastered recordings on all the major recording formats for all the major record labels, and on projects by more than 1,300 artists, including Led Zeppeli ...

. It was released as a double album in July 1975 by

RCA Records RCA Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Group Corporation. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside Columbia Records (its former longtime rival), Arista Records and Epic R ...

, but taken off the market three weeks later. A radical departure from the rest of his catalog, ''Metal Machine Music'' features no songs or recognizably structured compositions, eschewing

melody A melody (), also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combination of Pitch (music), pitch and rhythm, while more figurativel ...

and

rhythm Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular r ...

for modulated

feedback Feedback occurs when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause and effect that forms a circuit or loop. The system can then be said to ''feed back'' into itself. The notion of cause-and-effect has to be handle ...

and

noise music Noise music is a genre of music that is characterised by the expressive use of noise. This type of music tends to challenge the distinction that is made in conventional musical practices between musical and non-musical sound. Noise music include ...

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. The album cost Reed his reputation in the

music industry The music industry are individuals and organizations that earn money by Songwriter, writing songs and musical compositions, creating and selling Sound recording and reproduction, recorded music and sheet music, presenting live music, concerts, ...

and has generally been panned by critics since its release. Simultaneously, it opened the door for some of his later, more

experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs whe ...

material. In 2008, Reed, Ulrich Krieger, and Sarth Calhoun collaborated to tour playing

free improvisation Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any general rules, instead following the intuition of its performers. The term can refer to both a technique—employed by any musician in any genre—and as a recognizable genre of ...

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 Drone music, drone-based music, or simply drone, is a minimalist genre of music that emphasizes the use of sustained sounds, notes, or tone clusters called '' drones''. It is typically characterized by lengthy compositions featuring relativel ...

work of

La Monte Young La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer, musician, and performance artist recognized as one of the first American minimalist composers and a central figure in Fluxus and post-war avant-garde music. He is best k ...

Theatre of Eternal Music The Theatre of Eternal Music (later sometimes called The Dream Syndicate) was an avant-garde musical group formed by La Monte Young in New York City in 1962. The first group (1962–1964) of performers consisted of La Monte Young, Marian Zazee ...

, whose members included

John Cale John Davies Cale (born 9 March 1942) is a Welsh musician, composer, and record producer who was a founding member of the American rock band the Velvet Underground. Over his six-decade career, Cale has worked in various styles across rock, dr ...

Tony Conrad Anthony Schmalz Conrad (March 7, 1940 – April 9, 2016) was an American video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician, composer, sound artist, teacher, and writer. Active in a variety of media since the early 1960s, he was a pioneer of both ...

, Angus MacLise and Marian Zazeela. Both Cale and MacLise were also members of Reed's band

the Velvet Underground The Velvet Underground were an American Rock music, rock band formed in New York City in 1964. Its classic lineup consisted of singer and guitarist Lou Reed, Welsh multi-instrumentalist John Cale, guitarist Sterling Morrison, and percussionis ...

(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 Leslie Conway "Lester" Bangs (December 14, 1948 – April 30, 1982) was an American music journalist and critic. He wrote for ''Creem'' and ''Rolling Stone'' magazines and was also a performing musician. The music critic Jim DeRogatis called ...

, 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 Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. He is one of the most revered figures in the history of Western music; his works rank among the most performed of the classical music repertoire ...

's '' Eroica'' and ''

Pastoral The pastoral genre of literature, art, or music depicts an idealised form of the shepherd's lifestyle – herding livestock around open areas of land according to the seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. The target au ...

'' Symphonies in the distortion, and that he had attempted to have the album released on the

RCA Red Seal RCA Red Seal is a classical music label whose origin dates to 1902 and is currently owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment. History The first "Gramophone Record Red Seal" discs were issued in 1901.

Critical reception

''Metal Machine Music'' confounded reviewers and listeners when it was first released. '' 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 Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th century music, 20th-century music. Davis ado ...

' '' Agharta'' album, which was issued around the same time. ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...

'' 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 A bus station, bus depot, or bus interchange is a structure where city buses or intercity buses stop to pick up and drop off passengers. A bus station is larger than a bus stop, which is usually simply a place on the roadside, where buses can st ...

". 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 Michael Bruce Sterling (born April 14, 1954) is an American science fiction author known for his novels and short fiction and editorship of the ''Mirrorshades'' anthology. In particular, he is linked to the cyberpunk subgenre. Sterling's first ...

short story "Dori Bangs".) The first issue of the seminal New York zine ''Punk'' placed Reed and the album in its inaugural 1976 issue, presaging the advent of both punk and the discordance of the New York

No Wave No wave was an avant-garde music genre and visual art scene that emerged in the late 1970s in Downtown New York City. The term was a pun based on the rejection of commercial new wave music. Reacting against punk rock's recycling of rock and r ...

scene. 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. ''

Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Ma ...

'' critic

Robert Christgau Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and later became a ...

referred to ''Metal Machine Music'' as Reed's "answer to ''

Environments Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, referring respectively to all living and non-living things occurring naturally and the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism ...

''" 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". Writing in ''

MusicHound Rock MusicHound (often stylized as musicHound) was a compiler of genre-specific music guides published in the United States by Visible Ink Press between 1996 and 2002. After publishing eleven album guides, the MusicHound series was sold to London-based ...

'' (1999),

Greg Kot Greg Kot (born March 3, 1957) is an American music journalist and author. From 1990 until 2020, Kot was the rock music critic at the ''Chicago Tribune'', where he covered popular music and reported on music-related social, political and busines ...

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''."Gary Graff & Daniel Durchholz (eds), ''MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide'', Visible Ink Press (Farmington Hills, MI, 1999; ), p. 931. 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 ''Trouser Press'' was a rock and roll magazine started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed fanzine by editor/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow fan of the Who, Dave Schulps, and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press" (a reference ...

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 AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

said that while

noise rock Noise rock (sometimes called noise punk) is a noise music, noise-oriented style of experimental rock that spun off from punk rock in the 1980s. Drawing on movements such as minimal music, minimalism, industrial music, and New York hardcore, a ...

groups "have created some sort of context for it", ''Metal Machine Music'' "hasn't gotten any more user friendly with time", given it "paus donly for side breaks with no rhythms, melodies, or formal structures to buffer the onslaught". Rock critic

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". In 1998, ''

The Wire ''The Wire'' is an American Crime fiction, crime Drama (film and television), drama television series created and primarily written by the American author and former police reporter David Simon for the cable network HBO. The series premiered o ...

'' 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 a December 2017 review, Mark Richardson of ''

Pitchfork A pitchfork or hay fork is an agricultural tool used to pitch loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. It has a long handle and usually two to five thin tines designed to efficiently move such materials. The term is also applie ...

'' gave ''Metal Machine Music'' a score of 8.7 out of 10. He describes the album as an "exhilarating" listen. 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 Buddah Records (later known as Buddha Records) was an American record label founded in 1967 in New York City. The label was born out of Kama Sutra Records, an MGM Records-distributed label, which remained a key imprint following Buddah's foundin ...

. The original 1975 RCA Victor LP edition was withdrawn within three weeks of its release.

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. 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 a noise rock/experimental side project.

In popular culture

The language of the ''

Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the Star Trek: The Original Series, series of the same name and became a worldwide Popular culture, pop-culture Cultural influence of ...

'' aliens known as the Breen was inspired by ''Metal Machine Music'', which the post-production sound staff were instructed to listen to when creating the electronic cackle that served as the Breen's voices. On ''

Mystery Science Theater 3000 ''Mystery Science Theater 3000'' (abbreviated as ''MST3K'') is an American science fiction comedy television series created by Joel Hodgson. The show premiered on WUCW, KTMA-TV (now WUCW) in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on November 24, 1988. It then ...

'', Joel Hodgson's character likened watching ''

Mighty Jack is a tokusatsu science fiction/espionage/action TV series. Created by Japanese effects wizard Eiji Tsuburaya, the show was produced by Tsuburaya Productions and was broadcast on Fuji TV from April 6, 1968 to June 29, 1968, with a total of 13 on ...

'' to "listening to two hours of Lou Reed's ''Metal Machine Music''." Later on the show, Michael J. Nelson's character says "Monster immediately gets up and puts on his ''Metal Machine Music''" due to the background music during the mutation scene in '' The Horror of Party Beach.''

Track listing

Side one # "Metal Machine Music A-1" – 16:10 Side two # "Metal Machine Music A-2" – 15:53 Side three # "Metal Machine Music A-3" – 16:13 Side four # "Metal Machine Music A-4" – 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

∞ The infinity symbol () is a List of mathematical symbols, mathematical symbol representing the concept of infinity. This symbol is also called a ''lemniscate'', after the lemniscate curves of a similar shape studied in algebraic geometry, or " ...

", as the last groove on the LP was a continuous loop, known as the

locked groove The overwhelming majority of records manufactured have been of certain sizes (7, 10, or 12 inches), playback speeds (33, 45, or 78 RPM), and appearance (round black discs). However, since the commercial adoption of the gramophone record (cal ...

. 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

{{DEFAULTSORT:Metal Machine Music Lou Reed albums 1975 albums Noise rock albums by American artists RCA Records albums Albums produced by Lou Reed Buddah Records albums 1970s instrumental albums Experimental rock albums by American artists