When it comes to music, we here at Opinz are sincerely interested in the good, the bad and the very, very ugly. With this interest in mind, we are undertaking a quest to examine the seedy underbelly of music, to dig to the bottom of the barrel and take a look at those albums that are widely regarded as the worst of the worst. Every week, we take a look at a candidate and determine whether or not they truly deserve their reputation as a musical disaster. Enjoy.
I’ve been doing this for several weeks now and I’ve so far chosen to ignore one particular album that has managed to make it onto many lists of the worst albums of all time. That album is of course Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music. Up until now I’ve ignored it, admittedly because it’s much easier to extract LOLs from 50 minutes of Kevin Federline rapping then 65 minutes of ear-raping guitar feedback. But there’s another reason why I’ve ignored it, something I’ve suspected but have confirmed now that I’ve actually heard the whole thing: it’s far from the worst album of all time. In fact, it’s not even bad.
Metal Machine Music was recorded in Reed’s apartment, where he supposedly set up two guitars and merely recorded feedback sped up and slowed down in various ways. The album was released in 1975, between two fairly mellow and well-received rock records, making it even more of an oddity in his catalog. Upon it’s release, it was met with predictable confusion. It was lambasted by critics and legend has it that thousands of fans returned their copies and asked for their money back.
Lou Reed’s motivations have been the subject of great debate. It’s been suggested that it was a part of a contractual obligation, an immature response to his label’s demands. Some thought it was a joke, at the expense of his fans, or the loathed horde of critics, or just because it amused him. Some, most notably critic Lester Bangs, praised Metal Machine Music as a fearless artistic statement and a worthwhile example of musical experimentation. The man himself still maintains that it was no joke: “I was serious about it. I was also really, really stoned.” He even claims to have inserted allusions to the works of classical composers, and requested that the album be released on RCA’s classical music label.
The truth is that all of the above-mentioned theories are probably true, to a certain extent. Reed’s previous album, Sally Can’t Dance, was a hit but Reed wasn’t pleased with it. RCA, however, wanted a quick follow-up. While Lou surely found humor in making Metal Machine Music that follow-up and must have enjoyed the critical response, it still can’t be said to be “just a joke”. Transformer, despite it’s risque lyrics, was a very commercially viable pop album, but remember that Reed was a founding member of The Velvet Underground, essentially The Beatles of experimental groups, from whose lineage all avant garde pop musicians can probably claim to have sprung. While John Cale was arguably the “experimental one” in The VU, it’s not like Reed was unfamiliar with this kind of thing. The liner notes reference La Monte Young and his Theater of Eternal Music, whose work was a major influence on Metal Machine Music‘s sound. He wasn’t even necessarily treading new ground.
That being said, Reed was ahead of the pack. A few years after Metal Machine Music, noise rock and so-called “no wave” music would emerge out of the post-punk scene and make Reed’s work sound tame in comparison. Acts like Nurse with Wound, Throbbing Gristle, Merzbow, and Foetus would use their abrasive sounds to give birth to the genre of industrial music now inhabited by Nine Inch Nails, and bands like Sonic Youth and Boredoms would later refine noise music and even bring it to more mainstream audiences.
Let’s try a little experiment. Try listening to the following excerpt of “Metal Machine Music, Part I”.
And then listen to this excerpt from “The Six Buttons of Sex Appeal” from Nurse With Wound’s Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella.
The Nurse With Wound piece is admittedly more dynamic, but what do you think would have happened if Reed had released something like “The Six Buttons of Sex Appeal”? The Nurse With Wound album is considered a classic in the industrial/noise genre, but Metal Machine Music is noted as a musical failure. Why is that?
Imagine what the reaction to Metal Machine Music might have been if the person who released it hadn’t been named Lou Reed, if people who picked the album up had no expectation of it’s contents beyond what they may or may not know of the actual music. It’s reputation would surely be different, perhaps even positive. The problem is that the people who were buying it were mostly the fans Reed had picked up after Transformer, people who might not even have been aware of that weird group he was in back in the 60s, who just wanted some good rock ‘n’ roll. The people who were reviewing it were rock critics who probably didn’t know what to make of it. How experienced with experimental music could you expect a critic at Rolling Stone to be in 1975? (Or, y’know, ever.) It was all about expectations and audience.
I’m not saying that you have to love Metal Machine Music. I may have namedropped a bunch of noise music acts up there but the only ones I’ve ever even personally had an interest in listening to are Sonic Youth and Throbbing Gristle. (And their more palatable material, to be specific.) This album was rough to listen to. “Part I” gave me a headache and had my stomach turning before I could properly adjust to it. All I’m saying is that we should drop the disrespectful bullshit about how it’s pointless or a big joke. It might not be your thing, but it serve a purpose and has an audience.
Those willing to make experimental and aesthetically unpleasing music deserve our respect. There’s a line from the comic book series The Invisibles that applies perfectly to what I’m talking about, though I don’t have the time to explain its context: “[They're] slowly assembling the maps of Hell to guide the rest of us safely through the dark.” That’s what experimental musicians do, men and women toiling away to make frightening and difficult music that will only appeal to a small number of people simply because they can, simply to see how far you can take something before it breaks. They’re just doing what needs to be done so that music can break new ground and invent new sounds and new ideas, the kind that will eventually trickle down to the mainstream and become a part of our common musical language.
So don’t hate on Metal Machine Music. It may have made me sick, but I honestly found it to be an interesting and dynamic piece of music that even approaches some kind of abstract beauty at several points. I even find it totally believable that there are allusions to classical music buried in there, though I’m admittedly too unfamiliar with classical music to be able to recognize them. Will I listen to Metal Machine Music again? Probably not. But I can assure you that it’s not the worst album of all time. I don’t think I’ve ever specified it, but this series is not really about albums like this. It’s too easy to find some abstract or abrasive piece of music that you couldn’t imagine liking and call it the worst thing you’ve ever heard. What I’m really looking for is albums that fail at being what they intend to be, and Metal Machine Music is a superb example of an album that in fact achieves everything it was created to achieve, whether you like it or not. Not only is it not the worst album of all time, it’s actually kind of perfect.
Back to the real crap (and the funny) next week: Mariah Carey – Glitter
Have you heard the worst album of all time? Tell us! We’re always looking for recommendations. If you think you know something just crappy enough to be a contender, leave a comment about it.
