Lou Reed's experimental album, frequently cited as the worst album of all-time. It is essentially two guitars placed in front of amplifiers, using different tape speeds and reverb settings. It is automatic feedback manipulated by man, though no man is actually making the sounds coming out of the guitars. There is nothing particularly musical about it, as it is just screeching noise for over an hour. And it's fucking amazing. Granted, I would never be able to listen to more than one side at a time, but just the sound of it...it's not even music, there are no notes, no rhythms, no rhyme or reason to any of it, it's just purely artificial sound waves, but it never claims to be anything above or below that (with the exception of Reed's amphetamine-fueled explanations), and that's what makes it so fucking amazing. I'm sitting here listening to something that it is supposed to be music, but it isn't. I'm looking for musical qualities and attributes in something that is just mechanized sound waves, free of human influence beyond audio flair. And the scary thing is, if you listen to it long enough, you will begin to hear musical attributes in it. It's like to listening to nature itself, pumped through amplifiers and drowned in feedback. All an electric guitar is anyway is the manipulation of magnetic fields and physical force to create customized sound, but this...this is magnetic fields running amok, bouncing off each other to create screeching, echoing, spiraling chasms of electronic mayhem that is a product only of a few purposefully mistuned strings and a few experimentally turned knobs.I don't know if you think I'm just glorifying some rock 'n roll song and describing it as an electronic onslaught, but it really is just feedback and noise. There is no chorus, there is no rhythm, there is no hook, there are no vocals, there is no drum set, it's just...noise. And it's amazing and I highly recommend it after a few beers.
