I am listening to "Metal Machine Music" by Lou Reed. I had forgotten until I was looking at the liner notes that this album was released in July, 1975. It is said to have almost killed Lou Reed's musical career. It is completely guitar music, but nowhere is a guitar played in a conventional way. There is a lot of feedback, as there had been with the Velvet Underground music. It reminds me of the aleatoric music of John Cage, Edgar Varèse and other twentieth-century composers. In concerts by the Velvet Underground they would sometimes place a guitar against an amp and leave it there to create feedback. Lou Reed did the same thing here. Sometimes there is almost a hint of melody. I would not play this CD for most of my friends. It is very abstract. Lou Reed is one of the most influential rock musicians who only had one top-ten album. He had one top-forty song. Some radio stations did not play it, because it refers to someone giving head. That song was "Walk on the Wild Side." He wrote some of the most intelligent song lyrics in Rock. I do not think he was concerned with being popular. His focus was more on self expression. I was very saddened when he died.
In the conversation about my sexual orientation the other day. One of the women asked when I knew I liked men. I turned the question around and asked her the same thing. I am not the first to do this I know, but she said "at birth." She understood the point I was making. I think she realized how sexual orientation is not a choice.
No comments:
Post a Comment