Andy Warhol's Factory has gotten a lot of bad press for being a home to hedonistic excess and a wide variety of stupidities. While there was some truth to that, beyond the hangers' on and the voyeurs real artistic experimentation was ongoing. Andy Warhol was the first painter to capture on canvass the essence of a world captivated by materialistic values and commercial imagery and left behind a substantial body of work that still influences visual artists today.
The Factory was also involved in groundbreaking theatrical presentations and film experimentation. However, aside from Andy himself, the most enduring legacy of the Factory has been the music. Birthplace of the Velvet Underground, one of the few truly experimental musical groups to come out of the late '60s and early '70s, the Factory was also home to concerts and workshops by experimental composers like John Cage.
So the only surprising thing about Lou Reed's 1975 double album Metal Machine Music was that people were so shocked he made it. Perhaps I can say that with the advantage of hindsight and retrospection, but any evidence available today of Reed's interest in experimentation was equally on display in the 1970's. He was friends with Andy Warhol for goodness sake; did they really think he was going to be happy just writing pop music?
The way Reed describes the evolution of Metal Machine Music is that it sprang from his love of the guitar and especially the feedback it could produce. At the time he developed the music for the album, he was living in a warehouse filled with recording equipment.
As an experiment, he set up a guitar in one tuning and leaned it against an amp to generate feedback. He took another guitar in a different tuning and laid it against another amplifier to generate more feedback. The two feedbacks reacted with each other to create a third sound wave, which in turn then interacted with the originals to create another sound wave. The process continued until layers and layers of sound were generated.
Obviously, nobody was ready for that sound in 1975, especially in the world of popular music. The album was taken off the market in three weeks after generating the highest number of returns (people wanting their money back) of any album put out. His record company at the time, RCA, was so pissed off they almost decreed that Reed could not record for the label again. It is somewhat ironic that in 2000, 25 years after the release, RCA approached him with the idea of a special anniversary edition of Metal Machine Music.
Article comments
1 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
Nice write-up, Richard, but these days home is where I hang my preconceptions. So Mister, you're a better man than me.
2 - Bill Berkley
Totally agree with your review. The new MMM live album is a joy to behold. In many ways, Zeitkratzer's spin is even better than Lou's original 1975 milestone album. Great stuff. In fact, startling!
3 - JC Mosquito
Does it come with a lyric sheet?
4 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
I think the long-delayed follow-up to MMM, 'Lyric Sheet Metal Music', will contain vocals and printed lyrics.
5 - Diamanda Galas
Metal Machine Matzah! I taught Lou Reed everything I know.
Now about that new Siouxsie solo album...
6 - Dave Futrell
Another triumpth for Zeitkratzer, Berlin's best avant-garde chamber music ensemble. This is the most exciting album since Iggy and the Stooges Raw Power. Bliss.
7 - Jeff C.
Does anyone know if Metal Machine Music was ever release on 8-track cartridge tape back in '75?
8 - Richard Marcus
Jeff
As far as I know the only deviation from normal vinal was that it was also released in Quadrophonic sound. I really doubt RCA bothered with any other format after the first three week's sales were such a disaster.
Richard
9 - Wayne Trower
Actually, Jeff C is right. There was an 8-Track Cartridge tape release of Metal Machine Music in 1975. Creem magazine online details the cartridge tape.
10 - Porter Gee
Who could forget Lester Bangs' seminal album review of Metal Machine Music, originally published in Creem magazine in 1975 (reprinted online courtesy of Rock N Roll Net...
11 - Making Ears Bleed Since 1975
Music critics these days are fond of characterizing Lou Reed's 1975 double album Metal Machine Music as "misunderstood," which is pretty pale verbiage considering what the four solid LP sides of layered, dissonant, speed-adjusted guitar feedback and screeching electronic noise hath wrought. Dig the new sound, same as the old sound. Check your moneymaker.
12 - JC Mosquito
Oddly enough, Jeff C, mein doppelganger, I had MMM on 8 track all those years ago. I'm sure it sounds much better on CD.
13 - JC Mosquito
Hahahaha! "Sheet Metal" Music! I just got it!
14 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
Thanks, JC.
15 - Robocop IV: Mommy's Crying
First Lou Reed tours Berlin in Europe in 2007, and now he revisits Berlin again by collaborating with a Berlin-based chamber music ensemble called Zeitkratzer. Is the Berlin connection deliberate or a coincidence? I remember reading when Lou wrote the Berlin album in 1973, he'd never even been to Berlin. Iggy Pop and David Bowie did it for him a few years later. Almost hilarious. But then again, Bowie always followed whatever Lou was into. I draw the line at Tin Machine.
16 - Bettina
I love the cd and DVD
The original I never played completely. But I like this one!
Bettina