Metal Machine Music: Unappreciated or justly ignored?

And...?

 

You may as well compare Metal Machine Music to Please Please Me, that's how much they have in common.

 

I had a girlfriend once who was an art school grad and was big into the whole everything-has-some-meaning school of thought. I played a bit of MMM for her once just out of morbid curiosity to see if she'd argue that it had artistic merit. Sure enough, she did. So I got her a copy for her birthday.

 

I like it.

I wish I would've seen some of his live concerts of it.

 

A perennial cutout bin resident that I finally took a chance on. Played about 10 minutes and was done with it forever. On the bright side, it is my dishwashing machine's favorite album.

 

Enjoyed it enough to grab the cd single...

 

I tried. I couldn't.

 

Lou Reed didnt take it seriously but as a jab at the record industry or something and now were debating the merits of it. No merits then, No merits now

 

It's 65+ minutes of pure unrelenting noise. It's a guitar album where the guitars aren't actually played. It's an unlikely pioneering work of ambient music. It's Lou Reed having a go at his label and his audience.

It makes a racket but is it art?

 

Yes, Lou Reed didn't take it seriously, that's why he performed it live with the Zeitkratker ensemble in 2002, and formed an improvisational trio called the Metal Machine Trio in 2010. Get with the program.

 

from what i read here, he did a less harsh version because he knew when he originally released it, that it wasnt suppose to be taken seriously, DONT BE A MARK

 

I have a bootleg of a withdrawn 1978 version where a disco beat was added along with 'Fly Robin Fly' strings.
It woulda shot to the toppa the dance charts!
:--)

 

And that makes sense how exactly? For something that wasn't supposed to be taken seriously it's quite a complex and involved piece, it's not like he threw it together in an afternoon - if you've actually listened to it, that is. By the way, I don't think it's any kind of masterpiece, far from it, but the insistence of people who have never progressed musically beyond 1972 in dismissing it as a joke is noted. Still, it's great it still annoys the squares, way to go, Lou.

 

By the way Zeitkratzer version sounds very like the original!

 

and how times did LOU do this masterpiece since its release, if its one time, then its to please the marks like you who think this is some kind of grand statement of the world. Go turn up your guitar amp and let it feedback and listen to for 4 sides of time and there youve played MMM live too. If Lou really belived in this nonsense, his 2002 one shot would of been an over the top even more reckless event but he didnt cause he knew it was joke and got one more pay day out of it from his marks

 

Its never ignored. Gets referenced at this forum on a frequent and excessive basis.

 

curious how many times was this masterpiece played live after it was released, was there a MMM tour. if not then lous answered your question

 

You're struggling now. I said I didn't think it was any kind of masterpiece, if you'd bothered reading that bit. Give it up, man, you're way out of your comfort zone here.

 

Of course, you know how the live version was put together? Silly question, of course you do.

 

My main beef is that all 4
sides sound very similar.

 

Was there a MMM tour where he played this for anyone besides an offshot 2002 gig, if not then Lou didnt give a **** about this noise and only when the industrial music types suddenly found it did Lou give it any lip service

 

Look look, there's a Beatles record over there, go and listen to it.

 

It's hard to know. He did want it released on the RCA classical label. Obviously inspired by LMY , Cale, Conrad and the Theatre of Eternal Music but in many ways different. It does sound thrown together, and yet there is a structure – how well he thought that through we don't know and then does it matter? Obviously it's a more mechanical, less obviously an object of sonic beauty than the sound of those other artists mentioned. But for me it's his Warholian interpretation of Theatre of Eternal Music – a Dada/Pop gesture of a work rather than a deeply thought through composition or mode of playing. But it's all in that gesture. Music in the age of massed mechanical re-production. In that sense it is a joke – a serious joke, like Pop Art before it and Dada before that.

Personally, I'm not keen on the Zauerkraut version. Seems to miss the point, to me.

 

I appreciate it in the same way I appreciate Duchamp's Fountain. It's daring and bold, but it's only an urinal. Lou Reed's album is provocative, but it's only feedback going on for an hour. Of course, I respect those eager to enjoy it.

 

I don't think it does sound thrown together at all.