Metal Machine Music: Unappreciated or justly ignored?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by greenoort, Jul 28, 2017.

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  1. Hundazir Strabehn

    Hundazir Strabehn Kobaïan spoken here

    Location:
    Edinburgh
    I love it and have it on double vinyl, double CD and single CD. It's also on my i-pod and i-phone. For me, personally, it is the missing musical link between krautrock and punk (particularly the first Stooges album). Ok, it's not everyone's cup of tea but there again I don't understand people constantly going on about the Beatles (and that from someone who actually lived through the early 1960s).
     
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  2. Jon-A

    Jon-A Forum Resident

    Location:
    Madison, WI
    Yeah, considered alongside the works of La Monte Young, Tony Conrad and other minimalist/drone guys, MMM is varied, felicitous and concise. The comments here calling it the worst, most abrasive and worthless piece of **** imaginable really seem like the confident declarations of people who don't really know what they are talking about. I mean, it's only an hour long, and you can't tolerate more than a few minutes? Go to Young's Dream House - it's been going on for years. Who needs utterly uninformed opinions on avant-garde music, y'know?

    I remember reading an interview with Lou, probably in The Melody Maker, where he talked about having this new way of playing guitar that was going to blow everybody away. He certainly seemed sincere about it. And then MMM came out. Just listening to it again, I would say it's a pretty good attempt. Not up to the best Conrad and Young, but better than the one that's just pushing chairs around on a tiled floor...

     
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  3. Hundazir Strabehn

    Hundazir Strabehn Kobaïan spoken here

    Location:
    Edinburgh
    I remember it being played on john Peel's show. He had tried to get a variety of people (including Brian Eno) to speak about it and they all refused. So he played about fifteen seconds from each side one after another. I was hooked.
     
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  4. AMMusic kind of made me think of a haunted house soundscape. How it got released by Elektra is beyond me.
     
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  5. vinyl diehard

    vinyl diehard Two-Channel Forever

    Trout Mask Replica wasn’t as difficult.
     
  6. Johnny Action

    Johnny Action Forum President

    Location:
    Kailua, Hawai’i
    So you keep MMM all queued up on your device of choice, waiting for those clowns to call you?

    I think I'm going to use a ten second excerpt for my iPhone ring tone. That would be cool!
     
    Former Lee Warmer likes this.
  7. DrewMeyer

    DrewMeyer Forum Resident

    Location:
    Arizona
    I’m sure this demonstrates my ignorance but I cannot for the life of me figure out what AMM is but I want to hear it based off these descriptions. Any help?
     
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  8. Dahabenzapple

    Dahabenzapple Forum Resident

    Location:
    Livingston NJ
    A collective group formed in the mid 60’s with Keith Rowe, Eddie Prevost & Cornelius Cardew. Later versions are the trio with Rowe, Prevost & John Tilbury on piano. I prefer the latter. The label is Matchless run by Prevost. Rowe left in the early 2000’s but he did play a group of concerts with the other 2 a few years back. Look for Newfoundland & Live in Allentown from the mid-90’s. Very abstract yet very open and sometimes very quiet improvisation where often the instruments save for the piano do not sound like normal instruments. The very early music is very noisy and is much less to my taste. The Nameless Uncarved Block from the early 90’s has Lou Gare on tenor sax added to the trio. It’s a great recording.

    When I first heard this music I didn’t connect at all. It took time and the end result is it opened me up to all sorts of abstract music. Taught me how to not listen to who was or is playing what and it taught me patience and a different sort of beauty & energy. I learned to hear power and tension without release and to not need an end game. No need for motif or cliche. Anti jazz - never “jazzy”. Rowe is one of true geniuses of music to my ears and I’m no fanatic but I’ve seen him live a number of times and when I’m into this sort of thing I’m all in.
     
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  9. Dave Gilmour's Cat

    Dave Gilmour's Cat Forum Resident

    That’s not true or very kind.

    It’s amazing that an album makes people feel so unconfortable that they have to insult anyone who actually likes it. I expect Lou would have been delighted.
     
  10. bob_32_116

    bob_32_116 Forum Flaneur

    Location:
    Perth Australia
  11. DrewMeyer

    DrewMeyer Forum Resident

    Location:
    Arizona
    Thank you for the insightful comments! I thought it was an acronym so that was really throwing me off. I’m interested now to check them out and see what I’m missing
     
  12. jawaka1000

    jawaka1000 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Netherlands
    I thought I'd mention that before Cornelius Cardew did AMM he had the scratch orchestra with none other then Brian Eno in 1969!
     
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  13. Centralscrutinizer

    Centralscrutinizer Forum Resident

    I can appreciate that MMM is an artistic statement BUT I don't appreciate listening to it (which I've done precisely once)
     
  14. JumpinJimF

    JumpinJimF Still perfecting ways of making sealing wax

    Location:
    Normal Island
    No but I can find it in seconds on Spotify
     
  15. DTK

    DTK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Europe
    I'm sure Lou would have been delighted :).
     
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  16. the pope ondine

    the pope ondine Forum Resident

    Location:
    Virginia
    speaking of reaction videos, ok no one was but i just thought of this, id love to see reaction videos of fans in 1975 playing this thing for the first time expecting sally cant dance part two or a live album (the cover gives it that look) ....95 percent will have the look of confusion turned to irritation....turned to anger ....as they skip ahead to see its the same feedback shriek.....then they'll try the 2nd record and then give up ripping it off the turntable.....
     
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  17. Dave Thompson

    Dave Thompson Forum Resident

    In the days of Walkmans, sitting on public transport with the tinny tick-tick-tick of other people's music filling my ears, I took to listening to MMM on my headphones on my way to work. I actually found it very relaxing - a great way of clearing my head for the day ahead, and blanking out everything that was going on around me. File under "Aggressive Ambient."
     
  18. MMM is a terrific joke - worthless junk in a great cover.

    Pity that Lou Reed's clinical levels of self regard made him believe everything he produced was art. But funny so many can delude themselves into agreeing with him...
     
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  19. DTK

    DTK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Europe
    You could apply the same argument to Dylan ;).
     
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  20. WildHoneyPie9

    WildHoneyPie9 Forum Resident

    Location:
    .
    I didn't mean to insult people who say they like or enjoy this record; I just don't believe them.
     
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  21. Yes, you could if a. You didn't understand the basis of the argument and b. Were an idiot.
     
  22. Dahabenzapple

    Dahabenzapple Forum Resident

    Location:
    Livingston NJ
    AMM with Cardew was before and during and after his 1969 collaboration with Eno. First AMM record was 1966. For a bit some thought they might morph into something even a bit commercial but the opposite occurred over the years. They even played shows with Pink Floyd in the early days of both bands. Floyd eventually eliminated most of all improvisation while AMM got more obscure and abstract.
     
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  23. Dahabenzapple

    Dahabenzapple Forum Resident

    Location:
    Livingston NJ
    Then would you believe I like more abstract and seemingly difficult music than MMM? I’ve never listened to MMM. For me I’ve always been interested in an artist’s core and not some one off experiment.
     
  24. maxnix

    maxnix Forum Resident

    MMM is much more fun to talk about than it is to actually listen to. I love it, but I don't listen to it. Much as that makes no sense at all, there it is. 30+ years later we're still arguing about it, and IMHO that's exactly what Lou Reed wanted.
     
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  25. WildHoneyPie9

    WildHoneyPie9 Forum Resident

    Location:
    .
    It depends. Which artists and music are you talking about?

    Why haven't you listened to MMM? Aren't you a bit curious what all the fuss is about?
     
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