Metal Machine Music

Metal Machine Music is a two-disc LP (now audio CD) by Lou Reed. It was released by RCA Records in 1975. The album was re-released by BMG in 1998 and again by BMG reissue label Buddha Records in 2000.

Metal Machine Music is generally considered to be either a joke, a begrudging fulfillment of a contractual obligation, or an early example of noise music. Reed has since contradicted popular sentiment, stating that "I was serious about it. I was also really, really stoned." According to Reed (despite the original liner notes), the album entirely consists of guitar feedback played at different speeds. He recorded the work on a four-track tape recorder in his New York apartment, mixing the four tracks for stereo.

In its original form, each track occupied one side of an LP record and lasted around 16 minutes, though the fourth side was specifically cut to repeat the last few seconds endlessly. The rare 8-Track Tape version has no silence in between programs, so that it plays continuously without gaps on most players.

In an interview with rock journalist Lester Bangs, Reed claimed that he had intentionally placed sonic allusions to classical works like Beethoven's Eroica and Pastoral in the distortion. It is not clear whether or not he was being serious.

The album was ranked number two in the 1991 book Slipped Discs: The Worst Rock 'n' Roll Records of All Time by Jimmy Guterman and Owen O'Donnell. ^* The book gives sympathy to legendary record cutting engineer Bob Ludwig for having to listen to the album in its entirety. In 2005, Q magazine included the album in a list of "Ten Terrible Records by Great Artists".

Comedian Gilbert Gottfried sometimes used the record as audio backdrop when he hosted USA Network's USA Up All Night in the 1990s.