Truly an experimental album, Metal Machine is built from layered output of Reed's oscillating sound equipment, physically configured for innovative results. What you hear are intermeshed waveforms from unmanned guitars interacting with amplifiers, which are all tuned and controlled by Reed. The very dense and chaotic results are obtained by the four tracking of multiple separate channels of such experiments. From the liner notes, Reed says he wanted to make sound for himself to personally listen to, and that grew into these master tapes. The effect is an agglomeration of conflicting signals of which the only stable element is the volume and erratic tendency for change. Composition and writing are not the key ingredients here. Instead, content, lots of it, is crammed into a brutally raw production mix, which might truly pass for some kind of machine signal output. The four sides of the album simply start and stop abruptly to begin and end. In between is a place to empty your mind, by the shock and companionship of information overload. There aren't hidden melodies and so forth. This is physical equipment manipulation more in the field of signal processing. I don't think this was a slap dash effort. It's artistically different from the rock genre and should be appreciated from a different footing. The four "sides" are consistently dense, yet each is intrinsically unique. For noise fans.

I'm pretty sure the second album is the first one backwards, so pardon me but not "unique".

Lou Reed's legendary crap album, 4 tracks of static noise which is supposed to be some vastly intellectual exercise in beard stroking and not the pretentious self-indulgent monotony that it appears to the unsophisticated. When it came out people refused to be hoodwinked and took it back to stores demanding refunds but nowadays people are more easily fooled - if you have it you can tell people you understand it, thus people will think you are more sophisticated and intellectual than they are etc. You may even get some pussy as a result of giving it 5/5 as SIX people have here! But let's face it, apart from being able to make people think you are sophisticated what value has it? You cannot listen to it for more than a few minutes at a time (a test of endurance), you cannot dance to it, you cannot learn the words and sing along to it.... It truly is a piece of junk.

Obviously you're a Reed fan who clings to his popular works, and you probably hate every Reed album that critics hate too. And you think that the ladies think my listening to this is worthy of sex?! I've played this to 3 different girlfriends and they ALL highly questioned my taste thereafter. I don't think I'm cool or hip for liking this album, I think I'm a Lou Reed fan and experimental music fan for liking this album.

I purchased the remastered 2010 vinyl record about two or three months ago and have since recorded it to mp3 and added it to my iPod. The play-count for each of the four parts reads 29. (and that does not include the many times i have played the record itself.) I honestly DO put this record on nearly every morning when i wake up and get ready for the day. And just about everytime i listen to it i listen to the entire thing and enjoy all 60 minutes of it. I ride the bus with it blaring in my headphones, close my eyes and escape. From the first time i dropped the needle until now, i have been in love with this thing.Please, TRY to understand that people DO enjoy this record and while to you, it may sound like junk, I think, note: I THINK; in MY opinion, it really is ONE OF THE BEST albums ever recorded. I am not trying to be sophisticated at all. People have different tastes man, and it IS possible to listen to this and really enjoy it. Sorry, but i'm so sick of people saying things like 'oh you only listen to noise and MMM etcetera etcetera because you want to appear hardcore, you don't/can't really like it'. I simply am in love with SOUND. And MMM contains some of the most beautiful and powerful sounds i have ever heard.As a side note: To be fair, i feel just as confused when i hear people tell me about how great Bob Dylan and all of his records are. I personally do not like Bob Dylan and find a lot of his records to be a 'piece of junk', along with most of the music played on modern-pop radio.

I've sold, traded or got rid of anything I can dance to and most of the stuff that has words you can learn and sing.I've not got rid of this album and never will.

Actually I do know a lot of tracks to which you cannot dance, learn the words or sing along but are great anyway.

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