Back In the Day, 1975

Lou Reed

Metal Machine Music

(RCA Victor)

Buyers who judged this two-LP release by its cover and thought it a live record were surely downcast upon hearing on what they'd wasted dollars. 

Reed's resume included the iconic Velvet Underground and subsequent classics like "Vicious," "Satellite of Love," and "Caroline Says." So it was not illogical to assume Metal Machine Music might contain similar bounty. 

But it was not 'so bad, it's good.' It was just bad. A Rock'n'Roll Swindle that predated the Rotten bunch. The record was neither a live album nor a collection of fresh, trenchant compositions. Reed had simply tuned every guitar string to the same note and squared off with various studio technology, producing four vinyl sides of ear-abrasive feedback. That was all.

It was every bit a mess - unpleasantness with zero redeeming value. Lore holds that scores of embittered purchasers returned copies, their eardrums probably still ringing. Those who never heard it are envied by unfortunates who have.

But as if they were praising the Emperor's new clothes, a few "intellectual" critics of that day hailed the atrocity as artistic and boldly innovative. Reed himself asserted orchestral movements hummed beneath the unrelieved grinding racket, though none were apparent to the ear. 

Astoundingly, successive years saw remasterings. Of course, a porker sporting lipstick still waddles trough-ward. 

Recommended: Not at all.