Agreed. I liked Metal Machine Music. When I listened to it, it seemed to have a lot more to do with Jimi Hendrix than, I dunno, Theatre of Eternal Music.
I don't think it is fair to call it a 'farce' for that reason.
Metal Machine Music
- Thread starter STN
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Agreed. I liked Metal Machine Music. When I listened to it, it seemed to have a lot more to do with Jimi Hendrix than, I dunno, Theatre of Eternal Music.
I don't think it is fair to call it a 'farce' for that reason.
slim jenkins
El Hombre Invisible
Funny...I walked around with this CD in my hand for about half an hour last week...thoughts alternating between "It'll be crap" and "It's got to be interesting"...finally shelved it again. I suspect the former is more likely to be my reaction.
Surpised at the flak Lou's getting here, though. I must be the only one around here who rates 'Transformer'...you're all too 'vicious'.
Surpised at the flak Lou's getting here, though. I must be the only one around here who rates 'Transformer'...you're all too 'vicious'.
I think that's a cop-out, even if Lou Reed did intend it that way (which I doubt sincerely) "Aha, shallow bourgeosis consumer, you have fallen into my clever musical trap! It was all an elaborate joke to MESS WITH YOUR MIND ". Yeah, my arse. This response is just a refusal to acknowledge that he released something that was completely rubbish. Read what I wrote again - I said it isn't interesting sonically, musically or thematically - there really is very little going on in the piece as a whole. it may well have a place in the avant-garde of the 70s/80s, but it's attracted considerable ire and criticism since then and - in this case - no smoke without fire.
I agree with you that from today's perspective the production of a 'resistent' or ire-inducing aesthetic object with no other purpose or merits would be a copout. Today, that kind of thing is everywhere - in his time, on major labels, not so much.
You may doubt his intentions if you like (I don't know him personally either), but his wish to make a controversial and anti-consumerist record is pretty well documented (in biographies and so on).
personally I don't find the record to be rubbish at all (though I understand why you do), in fact I find it a "sonically interesting" document, and a fairly suggestive one, one that fits squarely and without controversy in the domain of abstract music/noise/experimental/wotevz. The way the sounds are constructed, layered, and composed; the ways in which the sounds were achieved in the studio; the ways in which the sounds have been manipulated ... there's a number of compositional and timbral ideas there, i think.
As for this "considerable ire and criticism since then" which you mention -- I guess I don't see that, apart from historical role etc, it's not a controversial rec at all from where I sit, in fact I'd say it's canonical. Horses for courses & ymmv etc
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Fair point. From what you've read though, would you say the point was to make a controversial record for controversy's sake/to outrage the bourgeosis /whatever or to make a controversial record that is sonically interesting? I'd be much more inclined to view the latter favourably.
Maybe I need to listen to it again. I've listened to some experimental music - not a lot but some - mostly Nurse With Wound, Throbbing Gristle, Eno, as well as Suicide, William Basinski, Steve Reich and some others - and I found I could *get* them (some more easily than others, obviously). I listened to MMM about four times, and I just couldn't find a "way in" - just didn't get anything from it, despite several attempts. Horses for courses as you say.
What's your favourite, non-Velvets Sterling Morrison project? ...Moe Tucker project? ...Doug Yule project?
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wonk_vitesse
radio eros
It sounds pretty harmonic to me and that's the link with Cale and ultimately La Monte Young, but it goes onto be alot more noisy & dissonant.
Is this the first 'noise' record or did someone do something before this ? Maybe that's why it's of note rather than it being a great record.
Is this the first 'noise' record or did someone do something before this ? Maybe that's why it's of note rather than it being a great record.
Free Jazz is much less noisy than, say, Peter Brötzmann's Machine Gun... both predate Metal Machine Music but both have discernible instruments in them, which may be a pretty big difference if you really want to do the "which came first?" game.
There'd be heaps of stuff from the academy and art worlds though, e.g. Steve Reich's Pendulum Music is just feedback from microphones swinging past each other above a floor-mounted speaker, so they eventually turn into a constant shriek of feedback as they come to rest. Late 60s from memory.
There'd be heaps of stuff from the academy and art worlds though, e.g. Steve Reich's Pendulum Music is just feedback from microphones swinging past each other above a floor-mounted speaker, so they eventually turn into a constant shriek of feedback as they come to rest. Late 60s from memory.
nochexxx
harco pronting
i took the plunge and dl'ed this record today (usually i would hold out until i got the vinyl). i've been wanting to listen to it for ages and this thread pushed me into doing so. i loved it. sounds like a cross between yasunao tone, gordon mumma, oval, jim o'rourke doing his mego workouts, hototogisu, skullflower, burning starcore as well as the many thousands of contemporary noise music net-workers. amazing stuff, spech for 1975.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
heres; my post all werirsly mistype;sld whatever stylee
Lou Reed just made this album quick-like to get out of a contract, didn't he? As in it was just an asshole move, very typical of him, that was meant as a big fuck you everyone! For this reason, I'd probably be disinclined to ever bother listening to it.
Yeah, that's what I'd always heard too.
My rather excellent local library has a copy, so I've given it a listen before, but wasn't very taken with it.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Well I remember my boyfriend playing it quite a bit a long time ago and it didn't bother me, but it didn't stick with me either.
Treble.
Treble.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Did Lester Bangs like it?
It does strike me as rather butch enough for him to get into.
It does strike me as rather butch enough for him to get into.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
Yeah I'm not a fan of Lou Reed, especially his solo work, but it's just laughable nonsense to say that he was the least creative/avant Velvet. It was just Cale.
I don't see why MMM turns people off so much either. It's just a mediocre noise record, like thousands of mediocre noise records since. I guess at the time it was kind of interesting for a pop singer to do something that was only the province of academy types. Also that review, ugh. Everything I dislike about Bangs' writing wrapped up in a few paragraphs. Sure he nails the occasional clever one-liner but other than it's just rambling nonsense, not in a good way, compounded by his loathsome "white nigger" schtick.
all too 'vicious'.
nah but Blitz's cover version kills the original.