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"&lt;p&gt;Lou Reed&amp;apos;s new set, a two-record electronic composition, is an act of provocation, a jab of contempt, but the timing is all wrong. In its droning, shapeless indifference, &lt;em&gt;Metal Machine Music&lt;/em&gt; is hopelessly old-fashioned. After a decade of aesthetic outrages, four sides of what sounds like the tubular groaning of a galactic refrigerator just aren&amp;apos;t going to inflame the bourgeoisie (whoever they are) or repel his fans (since they&amp;apos;ll just shrug and wait for the next collection). Lou Reed is disdainfully unveiling the black hole in his personal universe, but the question is, who&amp;apos;s supposed to flinch?&lt;/p&gt;\r\n&lt;wm:embed type=\"related\"&gt;&lt;/wm:embed&gt;&lt;p&gt;The critics. In a recent interview, Reed&amp;apos;s metabolism was in its usual inert state until the subject of critics came up, at which point he became agitated, lashing out at several. Reed probably conceived &lt;em&gt;M/M/M&lt;/em&gt; knowing that only critics would pay serious attention to the damn thing. In the liner notes he admits that he hasn&amp;apos;t listened to it all the way through, and in the interview the claim that he made for &lt;em&gt;M/M/M&lt;/em&gt; was that playing it &amp;quot;would clear the room.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;\r\n&lt;p&gt;Well, I have. Played it, that is. Once. Which is one of the better feats of endurance in my life, equal to reading &lt;em&gt;The Painted Bird&lt;/em&gt;, sitting through &lt;em&gt;Savage Messiah&lt;/em&gt; and spending a night in a bus terminal in Hagerstown, Maryland. Yet, when my turntable mercifully silenced Lou Reed&amp;apos;s cosmic scrapings, I felt no anger, no indignation, not even a sense of time wasted, just mild regret. Avant-garde artists (Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Andy Warhol) have been experimenting with ennui as a concept for so long that it&amp;apos;s no longer daring to tax the audience&amp;apos;s patience by being deliberately, intensely boring. By now, one knows how to respond to such distended buzzing: One simply tunes out and tunes back in when the action picks up. Reed himself understands this: &amp;quot;I&amp;apos;m like everybody else, I watch things on TV,&amp;quot; he sings on &amp;quot;Satellite of Love.&amp;quot;&lt;/p&gt;\r\n&lt;p&gt;If this album is Reed&amp;apos;s &lt;em&gt;Self Portrait&lt;/em&gt;, then we may have to tolerate a lot of stroboscopic sludge before he gets back on the tracks. What&amp;apos;s most distressing is the possibility that &lt;em&gt;Metal Machine Music&lt;/em&gt; isn&amp;apos;t so much a knife slash at his detractors as perhaps a blade turned inward. At its very worst this album suggests masochism. He may be, to shift weaponry images, moving to the center of fire so that we critics-as-assassins can make a clean kill. Fine, Lou, go ahead. Just stand there. Don&amp;apos;t move, But damned if I&amp;apos;ll squeeze the trigger.&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/metal-machine-music-19750814>