Lou Reed
Metal Machine Music

Days ago, just a few hours before the Low concert at the Teatro dal Verme, I was wandering around the center of Milan, looking for a place to stop and kill some time. There are two types of oases where I inevitably end up lingering and roaming: bookstores and record stores. And what better place than a cross between the two?
In Piazza Duomo, I entered Mondadori, in front of which a crowd of young girls, of doubtful intellectual quotient, were screaming for the arrival of Alessandra Amoroso, who had just released her latest album, “Io” (how original! And how little narcissism!).

In short, I crossed the bookstore's threshold, leaving the crowd behind, only to find Alessandra Amoroso's image within, on CDs and other surfaces. Ignoring what I saw, I took the elevator and headed to the floor dedicated to CDs, DVDs, and, of course, vinyl records (which are quite coming back into vogue). Since I had a sorry-looking backpack with years of wear, I lingered only on CDs and DVDs. I couldn't help but notice the fluctuating prices on the products – some very high, some much more affordable. In the “international CDs” section (I don't remember if that was the exact wording), I noticed a series of CDs by Lou Reed that were really cheap. I picked four: “Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal” (1974), “Metal Machine Music” (1975), “The Bells” (1979), “The Blue Mask” (1982). I also added “Voyage of the Acolyte” (1975) by Steve Hackett and “Solitude Standing” (1987) by Suzanne Vega.

Today, I'm going to talk about the super-talked-about, super-ambiguous, super-hated, and super-demonized “Metal Machine Music”.
First of all – why did I buy it? Naturally, the primary reason was the very low price and, secondly, a collectible and historical factor. I admit I smiled when I saw it, and I smiled internally as I picked it up along with the other albums and made it mine.

Now, at home, miles and miles away from Milan, Mondadori, Teatro dal Verme, and Low, I have put on “metal machine music” (or “machine metal music”) on my small and modest radio.
I'm on the third track, just started, which is very similar, if not identical to the previous ones. Before today, I admit, I had never listened to the album in its entirety, nor had it ever crossed my mind to complete it. I think very few people have managed to listen to it all, or rather, have wanted to finish it.
“Metal Machine Music” is clearly an elaborate “fuck you” from Lou Reed to everyone, not just the audience, not just the critics: to both, and more. It is a fuck you directed at his parents, who made him undergo electroshock as a kid, intending to eliminate the son's presumed homosexuality. It is also a declaration of love for the guitar, and for rock ‘n’ roll, and, as he himself says, in the original LP liner notes, an attempt to “write” a letter as realistically and passionately as possible, because he felt he had never recorded an album that achieved that purpose.

A creation with little of the discographic, which is more a liberation, a flow of noises creating a proto-industrial symphony, without, probably, Lou Reed being aware of the scope and impact it would have. A record made for himself, rather than for the music market, a monstrous creature, staunchly defended by its creator. “Metal Machine Music” is all of this: it is everything and nothing. Each person's perception of it is different.
It is not an avant-garde album, not an album à la Stockhausen or à la Cage, but an album à la Reed, rock musician, songwriter above all, who, having momentarily shed the storyteller's garb, chooses to let sounds speak – noises. Maybe they were the sounds he had in his head!? Something close to it.

As a listener, I don't believe “Metal Machine Music” is more unlistenable than other products out there. Today, as I listen to it for the first time in its entirety, because yes, at least forty minutes have passed, and the everything (and nothing) – 64 minutes – is coming to an end, my mind and body channel much of what the album “with the 3 M's” is and wants to mean.
Always fascinated by this monstrous creature, trapped on disc, only today, however, do I realize its scope and its intrinsic value. It is something that, if you wanted to give it a score, couldn't be evaluated with an average judgment. You either hate it or love it, or you give it 10/10 or 0/10. Any middle score is ridiculous and makes no sense.
Not even Brian Eno, as an experimenter and a man, would have had so much courage, nor so much willingness to expose himself, not at these levels of vulnerability. “Metal Machine Music” is a large, gaping wound. Lou Reed is a genius, through these 64 minutes more manifest than ever.

My score? What's the point in telling you? 10/10