Metal Machine Music
by Lou Reed

Sounds like telephone interference mixed with dial-up internet. 10/10.

This album is brilliant. Some day I will write a dissertation justifying my stance, but for now all I'll say is this: anyone could have done this, but Lou Reed was the only one with the guts to actually make it happen.

From StefanR10 05/31/2020 19:57 | #252623

I give it 60 points of 100 because i found it not so bad not easy to listen but ok. For me it is often the same frequency but there are some outriders so it is not the worst but it is very experimental and a kind oft art. I would not buy it but when you want to listen to avantgarde music this is you way.

From Brandon8 04/13/2020 19:21 | #249897

I don’t believe this belongs in Lou’s top ten but I understand it’s going to get attention. This is strictly instrumental and experimental not a traditional release by any means. I own this on vinyl because I am a completist. I was unable to get all the way through my first listen and not sure when I will give it another spin. The album cover is really cool and the liner notes are hilarious. You have been warned.

The reaction to this album shows how little rock critics know. Dismissed at the time as unlistenable noise released to get out of a record contract, this is serious electronic music, and anyone who knows the greatest classical composers of the 2nd half of the 20thC - Stockhausen, Xenakis, Cage - would instantly recognise it as such. This album is not at that level, but it is at least equal to Zappa's best serious Art Music. It's up there with Tago Mago, Aphex Twin, Autechre, Venetian Snares and Nurse With Wound as serious art music.

Yes.

From Boltzmann 09/07/2018 06:39 | #220692

There is definitely some order in this chaos. The kind of order you find on Aphex Twin’s jungle tracks. This is not just all random, I’m sure. It is - however - very repetitive. And that would be kinda okay for mmm pt. 1, but there are no particularly different patterns to find on the rest of the erm... compositions. All in all, this is an interesting experiment, but he could have tried to make it somehow enjoyable to listen to. That would’ve been a legendary work of art. But this sounds a bit lazy and is only good for releasing some stress... if you’re okay with the migraine that it replaces.

From Helios 09/22/2017 03:54 | #198497

I said it before and I said it now: This is one of the best albums of Noise ever made (Merzbow it's the best)

I so wish i could like this but i don't.

From desh79 12/22/2016 15:54 | #180729

Let's face it, Lou Reed was a genius, but he was crazy as a sack of bees. I remember trying to listen to this... thing... in one whole take, in what I can only call a bout of teenage stupidity, and learned some really interesting things about how the human brain works in the process. How it tries to make sense and create order even when there is none, and how amidst the cacophony, feedback and noise, I was able to hear, well, stuff, after a while. Suddenly I heard sea gulls chirping. I heard ship horns. I saw a little girl waving her mommy goodbye. Suddenly I was at Brighton beach! And off in the distance, just by West Pier, stood Lou Reed. He was pointing at me and laughing at this stupid endeavour I had undertaken. I think I lasted until about the middle of Side B before the room around me started spinning.

I still can't decide whether to give this 0 star, or 5 for the sheer balls of the thing.