Metal Machine Music: Unappreciated or justly ignored?

Never understood the reasoning behind it. Are we sure it wasn't just Mr. Reed trying to hasten the end of his RCA contract?

He became a contrite little kitten when the outlets starting returning MMM in record numbers and made the much more saleable Coney Island Baby. The liner notes for the reissue of the latter detail his gratitude to the RCA head honchos for 'humouring' him.

 

Always thought it was Lou's version of ambient music.

 

I recently found an interview in which Lou states that MMM was a serious work. He also says unequivocally that it was not an attempt to break his RCA contract. (I always thought it was a serious piece of extreme music, but with the additional intent to break ties with RCA.)

Reed himself, speaking from New York says the following about the record: "My goal at the time was to have a sound in which to surround and intoxicate yourself. I made it out of love for guitar-driven feedback and the squall of the metal machine."


The Quietus | Features | A Quietus Interview | Lou Reed Interview: Metal Machine Music Revisited

 

I have the Paul Stanley stage banter album on cue for this purpose.

 

I think this album and the fact there are people out there who say they genuinely love it is proof you can like anything if you really want to like it. I'm not saying people who say they love it are being disingenuous. But I think often we decide we love something and then determine why after the fact. I know I've done this.

 

People tend to do that with Trout Mask Replica, I've found.

 

it's an awful album, matched with a brilliant cover

 

I love Trout Mask Replica and MMM. What does that make me?

 

Unemployable?

 

I don't doubt that some people genuinely love those albums (and I would say I can appreciate the viewpoint of those who do, without quite being one of them) - but both albums attract their fair share of poseurs, at least in my experience.

 

A zombie.

 

Lou was trying to get rid of his manager. He succeeded.
But he was financially ruined as his manager hadn't paid his taxes and was living in a hotel. He goes into detail about this on the liner notes of the remaster.
The demos for CAB were recorded in January 1975, so he already had most of the material ready.

 

I recently bought a set of John Cale's avant garde home recordings done before, during and after he was a VU member. Some are remarkably similar to MMM and I wonder if La Monte Young and Cale weren't an inspiration really.

 

Sure but that shouldn’t be an aesthetic judgement of the work. Almost any music scene has its share of poseurs, that’s not exclusive to avant- grade. Don’t get me wrong, I fully respect anyone’s right to dislike this music, but that’s never going to stop me from enjoying it and I certainly won’t lose sleep trying to convince them they’re wrong on the internet

 

That and Xenakis's 'Persepolis', presumably. He actually namechecks Young specifically in the liner notes, but doesn't go as far as spelling his name right.

 

One of the reasons I always figured MMM was a real work and not just wankery (great word, never had a chance to use it before) is because of the mention La Monte Young's Dream Music on the back cover.

EDIT: Just saw 93curr's post.

 

For sure it was Reed trying to do La Monte Young and The Dream Syndicate. What is ironic that is Lou dismissed a question about such experiments during the VU years (e.g Loop), saying that that was Cale not him. I also think that it pales when compared with what La Monte Young, Angus Maclise, John Cale's and Tony Conrad's were doing at that time. Whilst their work was deeply considered, Lou's album is a dilettantist response. Lou Reed never cared about such experimental approaches at the time they were being explored, or when he made the MMM album. I really see it as his Warholian take on such ideas. All surface, no idea, no heart. Mechanistic, as so named.

 

You make that sound like a bad thing

 

About the idea, I'm trying to be ambivalent. But I'm less ambivalent about the end result - as I think the music is not a patch on the music of La Monte Young and the individual members of The Dream Syndicate. I think MMM's importance is an object that embodies the ideas I mentioned (and others), for good or bad.

I have owned the LP since it came out. I do find it a fascinating thing to behold. And I do listen to it.

 

i agree, I posted somewhere in this thread that its his version of Warhols Empire film, but instead of 16 hour shot of a silent Empire State building its 2 records full of non stop guitar feedback (really should've made it 4 ). it is fun when you listen to some of his later albums and you hear some of the same sounds, his work on a johnsons fistful of love had some of that same feedback squeal ...squall? ... has anyone done an examination of how he got all the sounds on the album?

 

been posted yet? lester bangs was a fan

Matt Carmichael

 

Hey you know it also kinda sounds like the first 10 seconds of this

if it were performed by several distorted electric guitars. Lou loved Ornette Coleman and free jazz and said he wanted to play guitar like a saxophone (for his lead playing at least). I think it makes perfect sense once you know that, those squeals are just like sax skronks.

 

Not that many dogs have heard that album but every dog who did hear it started a band. A terrible, terrible band...... Dogs cannot hold drum sticks. Fetch them, sure. Hold them....not so much.

D.D.

 

I wonder how many here have heard AMM or Keith Rowe’s music of the past 15 to 20 years. Certainly not for many tastes and many would think it is just random sounds but of course it isn’t. Early AMM (late 60’s) is very noisy and seemingly random but it is improvised music so there will always be a seemingly random element to fully improvised music.

Of course many don’t even consider things like this anything other than soundscapes or unlistenable noise.

 

Bit harsh.

And I don't understand the last reference: Periods