Lou Reed's infamous Metal Machine Music returns for its 50th Anniversary. The most notorious album in rock history returns – Remastered, Revisited, and Still as Radical as Ever
*Special 50th Anniversary edition for Record Store Day 2025. Silver embossed cover and spot varnished inner sleeves.* Fifty years after its initial release sent shockwaves through the music industry, Lou Reed's most controversial work, Metal Machine Music, is receiving a landmark reissue that finally gives this maligned masterpiece its due. What was once dismissed as a career-killing joke or a cynical contractual obligation is now rightfully recognized as one of the most forward-thinking recordings in rock history – a blistering, hour-long symphony of guitar feedback and electronic noise that predicted everything from industrial music to drone metal.
When Reed unleashed this double LP in 1975, critics and fans alike were baffled. Coming off the commercial success of Transformer, the album seemed like deliberate career sabotage – an endless barrage of screeching harmonics and amplifier worship with no traditional song structure in sight. Yet Reed himself called it "the closest I've ever come to perfection," and time has proven him right. Today, artists as diverse as Sonic Youth, Nine Inch Nails, and Merzbow cite it as foundational to their work, while academic circles study its influence on avant-garde composition.
This 50th anniversary edition presents Metal Machine Music in its full, uncompromising glory, meticulously remastered from the original analog tapes to reveal new layers of texture in the chaos. The release includes not just the original 64-minute aural assault, but also a second disc of previously unreleased studio experiments that show Reed's process behind this radical statement. A lavish 24-page booklet features rare photos, Reed's original enigmatic liner notes, and new essays from noise musicians and critics who unpack the album's enduring legacy.
What makes this reissue particularly timely is how Metal Machine Music no longer sounds like an aberration, but rather a prophetic work. In an era where noise music has become its own thriving genre and artists routinely deconstruct rock conventions, Reed's 1975 opus sounds less like a prank and more like a blueprint.
"He wasn't just ahead of his time – he created a new timeline altogether"
