Lou Reed – Metal Machine Music
I think this was a good 'fuck you' from Lou Reed to his record company, but also to anyone else who just thought he was a glam rock star. Prior to this he'd made Transformer, I think he'd made Sally Can't Dance and to me it was like he was going back to his roots with The Velvet Underground only more so. The fact that he mentions Lamont Young. And even if you can't stand the music, the sleeve is almost like a piece of conceptual art and right on the cover he's got the chemical formula, the Amine β Ring, which is partly the formula for ketamine or mescaline or something. It was pretty cool. He was so wasted at that time. It's not the most listenable of records but I liken it to TV static. When you watch that, after a while you start to see things in it. If you listen to Metal Machine Music in the correct state you'll hear stuff. It's not just feedback. Or maybe that's just me. But god bless him, he was such a fantastic artist.