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X Clan: To The East, Blackwards
X Clan
To The East, Blackwards
(4th & Broadway, 1990)
Makes perfect sense, really, my initial hostility toward rap music—or anything with a groove, for that matter. For you see, kids, once upon a time, it wasn’t particularly cool for dirty white boys to listen to rap. Forget for the moment that when I was coming up—back when a new Aerosmith record was an event, rather than an embarrassment—rap was still in its infancy. That’s kind of beside the point.
The point is that in my circle (white, suburban, middle-class, ’70s) there was a narrow window of acceptable music. It was hard rock and heavy metal—period. Anything remotely funky was a no-no, and when punk surfaced, I was dismayed to find that nobody wanted to know about that either, no matter how loud and heavy or how closely it resembled the aforementioned.
Metal Machine Music: Groaning Galactic Refrigerator
“In the 19th century, with the invention of the machine, Noise was born. Today, Noise triumphs and reigns supreme over the sensibility of men.”
Luigi Russolo, “The Art of Noises” (1913)
“It’s extraordinary, because all those years ago it was considered a career ender. And it almost was, believe you me.”
Lou Reed, on Metal Machine Music
* * *
You shouldn’t be reading this. And that’s not an admonition, by the way. You go ahead and read whatever you want. It’s just that, by all rights, the subject of this discourse should have been relegated to a footnote in the history of Lou Reed and of rock ‘n’ roll, in general.
At this point, nothing more should need to be said about Lou Reed’s cacophonous 1975 double album, Metal Machine Music. It should have sunk without a trace, relegated to the dusty corners of the Great Pop Music Archive, where it would butt up against the works of such obscurities as the Godz, Gentle Giant, Human Beinz, and Bubble Puppy.
But a funny thing happened on the way to obscurity. Like a bad rash—probably one of the few scornful comparisons that hasn’t actually been bestowed upon it—Metal Machine Music lingers on, more than three decades after it’s initial release. And what a release it was.
Nowadays, Reed has morphed into something like an elder statesman of rock ‘n’ roll. But in 1975, he was only about five years into the somewhat turbulent solo career he’d embarked upon after leaving the Velvet Underground. In terms of commercial success, it was a spotty half-decade.
The Second Annual Report of Throbbing Gristle
Throbbing Gristle
The Second Annual Report of Throbbing Gristle
(Industrial, 1977)
It’s hard to know what to make of the fact that Throbbing Gristle are still around, more than three decades after they first came together. It’s also hard to know what to make of the fact that they’ve released an audiophile-quality vinyl version of The Thirty-Second Annual Report of Throbbing Gristle in a framed limited edition.
This was done, as the group notes on their website, to mark “the 30th anniversary of the release of Throbbing Gristle’s first album The Second Annual Report, as well as to mark and celebrate the official re-activation of the Industrial Records label.” The blurbage goes on to note that the framed edition is limited to 777 copies, as was the original pressing, and can be had for £120 and shipping. Which is odd, though not nearly as odd as the vending of such nifty keepsakes as the “Limited Edition Industrial Records penknife,” which can be yours for only £15. (Thanks, but I’m saving my pennies for a Second Annual Report pencil case).
Animals, the Most Unlikely Punk Album of All Time
Some rock historians would have us believe that punk rock rose up in the ’70s, snarling and spitting, as a reaction to the excesses of progressive rock. It’s a truism that may be overstated but which probably contains at least a kernel of truth.
Among the more prominent bands targeted for derision by the safety pin and toothpaste crowd: Yes, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and Pink Floyd. It can hardly be coincidental that Yes released what’s arguably their most excessive work—the ponderous Tales from Topographic Oceans—in late 1973, just a few years before punk really got rolling. The following year, ELP turned out a bombastic three-record live set and three years after that, as punk was getting in full swing, another three LPs worth of Works (Vol. 1 and Vol. 2).
As for Pink Floyd, the most enduring and media-savvy of the Pistols, Johnny Rotten/Lydon, is said to have paraded around during their The Dark Side of the Moon-era heyday, sporting a homemade “I Hate Pink Floyd” t-shirt. In 1996, decades after the Sex Pistols went blooey, and long after Waters had exited Pink Floyd, Lydon was still professing his hatred for the band, though he claimed to get on well with guitarist David Gilmour. As late as 2000, Lydon was still beating this dead horse, dismissing Pink Floyd as “crap” and “a load of old twaddle.”
Gun Club: Fire of Love
Gun Club
Fire of Love
(Ruby/Slash, 1981)
“And when you fall in love with me
We can dig a hole by the willow tree
Then I will fuck you until you die
Bury you and kiss this town goodbye.
It will be unhappy, it will be sad
But it will be understood that I am bad”
– Gun Club, “Jack on Fire”
As I enter into my 112th year on this earth (okay, I’m 47, but for a music fan it might as well be 112), my once obsessive desire to track down new bands has dwindled to almost nil. Twenty years ago, I would surely have been keen on the likes of the White Stripes, hanging on their every utterance, buying the action figures and so on. Nowadays, I don’t even give a hoot that Jack White has weighed in on the Gun Club from his Olympian indie-rock hall, decreeing that they are/were indeed a good thing.
Standing on the Corner Studying Rules of Verse: A Visit With Sweet Jane
So I thought I would explain to you how to make a career out of three chords. -Lou Reed
Like many people who came of age in the ‘70s, my first exposure to Lou Reed’s music was by way of the perversions and doo-da-dooing colored girls that populated the sleazy world of “Walk on the Wild Side.” I was 10-years-old when the song first hit the airwaves and was more concerned with the likes of the Partridge Family than with the harder stuff. At the time, Lou Reed didn’t make much of an impression.
In a career that saw him turn out a staggering amount of outstanding—even groundbreaking—music (and a bunch of resounding clunkers, but more about that in a moment), this was Reed’s only true hit song. Given the fact that it stood out like a sore thumb (still does) from the usual fare, it’s surprising that the song ever made its way to rock ‘n’ roll radio. But “Walk on the Wild Side” never made much of an impact on me. To this day, I still rank it among Reed’s lesser works.
Paul McCartney: “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey”
by: William I. Lengeman III
Most pop music lyrics are drivel. No, I don’t have any stats to back that assertion, only decades of patient observation. Not that this is even a bad thing, mind you. One could make the argument that the magnificence of such an immensely brilliant work as “Louie Louie” would have been considerably demagnificentized if the lyrics had meant something—or, if you could understand them.
Same for such dim-watt exercises in retarded minimalism as the Ramones‘ “Beat on the Brat” or a host of others. Like Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher”, for example, or Gary Glitter’s supremely moronic “Rock and Roll Part 2”, which is actually more like an instrumental that’s been spiced up with a few strategically placed grunts.
On the other hand are those forays into pop songwriting that manage to marry a catchy tune with a lyric that actually says something. This isn’t the time or place to expound at much length upon this notion, but obviously you could look to the works of Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, and Lou Reed for starters.
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by: William I. Lengeman III
published: December 14, 2009
in column: Lyrical Communique
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