When Radiohead released Kid A this year, it was unquestionably: (A) an ambitious, artistic achievement or (B) a tedious, pretentious bore. Those two polar opinions come into play whenever an established performer has the good fortune to be both commercially viable and creatively volatile. But be careful when a driven artist becomes a huge success ? the results can be hell. Though Kid A manages to test the limits of song structure without relinquishing the band's thematic and musical strengths, there are always examples like Nine Inch Nails' The Fragile, an overwhelming, sometimes impenetrable, extension of Trent Reznor's much more succinct Downward Spiral. Sometimes the worst thing you can do for an Artist is to give him free reign.

But no matter what you think of these musical experiments, none can compare to the greatest exercise ever in self-indulgence and headache-inducing racket, which is now celebrating its 25th anniversary. It was vehemently trashed. It was hailed as groundbreaking and courageous. It threatened to end the career of one of our great artists. It's over an hour long and has only four songs ? and they all sound exactly alike. It's unlistenable. It's legendary. And it's finally on CD.

Its creator, Lou Reed, has had a legacy filled with bold moves that required patience as the world took its time to understand their full implications. Leader of the unloved-at-the-time Velvet Underground, Reed played a defining role in the other Most Influential Group of All Time, behind the Beatles and the Stones and the rest of the usual suspects. Since going solo in the early ?70s, Reed has watched the Velvets finally get their due for their brand of gutter-slimeball poetry and lo-fi drama.

But back in '75, the man was enjoying a successful solo career when he released Metal Machine Music, one of the most sonically unpleasant experiences in the history of rock n' roll. Sure, you can make hip jokes about the Backstreet Boys or whoever, but you haven't heard Metal Machine Music, so you don't really know. Nevertheless, as a primal example of music-as-release, the album has no equal. "My week beats your year," he wrote in the original liner notes, knocking off your glasses and bullying you into a fight. Metal Machine Music shows just how vicious and pained that bully really was.

Obviously, you don't risk orchestrating career suicide unless you're experiencing some extreme personal duress. Inundated with lawsuits from business partners in the mid-'70s, and stretched thin by an uncaring record company that screamed for more and more product to cash in on his popularity with the glam crowd, Reed finally decided he'd had enough from everyone. Thus came Metal Machine Music, an album of nothing but feedback. Sixty-four minutes of feedback. To make the record, he placed his guitars too close to his amps, and then recorded the resulting noise, varying the speed of the tapes and playing around with the reverb. The squall, screech, and drone at the end of a Nirvana concert or an electric Neil Young show? That's Metal Machine Music, without melody or meaning or mercy.

Because the album's been almost impossible to find before now, Metal Machine Music has achieved a sort of notorious reputation, like such god-awful movies as Caligula or I Spit on Your Grave, which, interestingly enough, have also finally be re-released to appease the morbidly curious. Its historic terribleness makes it so appealing; c'mon how bad can it be?

This would explain why the opportunity to finally own the legendarily horrific Metal Machine Music was simply too much to pass up.

What does it sound like?

Well, after much anticipation, now the truth can be told. It sounds like this:

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE AAAAAAHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH OOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHH OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHK AAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKAAAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKKK AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKKKKK?.

For 64 minutes.

One doesn't have to be a marketing whiz to see why Reed wasn't at the top of any Power Issues in 1975. Thankfully, though, once Reed got this unflinching record out of his system, he was able to hold onto a following, continuing to make unconventional, compelling albums, even up through this year's Ecstasy.

But because of Metal Machine Music's uncompromising Wall of Noise, of course, there will be those who embrace it without question, drawing lines in the sand while beating their chests about artistic expression and integrity. It's very easy to see both sides of the argument ? often at the same time ? as you ride through the album's waves of feedback. Your reaction to the disc is completely dependent on your mood as you listen to it. Metal Machine Music can be interpreted as an agonized, bracing cry of anger and need, railing against conformity and complacency. Or it's just total shit.

Anybody who gets off on the rude urgency of guitars will find some kinship with Metal Machine Music's distortion tactics. In certain sustained stretches, the album's songs ("Metal Machine Music" parts one through four) have a desperate, violent quality to them. Once you get past its atonality, the album furiously channels the entire spectrum of negative emotions (anger, loss, revenge, paranoia, fear, desire, disgust) with a bracing recklessness. Rock music has always addressed these feelings ? or it deals with love, which is simply an attempt to stave off these nastier sentiments. Metal Machine Music removes the shackles of conventional rules that govern this antisocial expression; there's no choruses or hooks to get in the way of the angst.

That's what draws people to the album ? they're attracted to the naked pain of its discord. If audiences love horror movies because they relish the ability to experience pure terror ? to lose, for a brief moment, any sense of control and composure ? then a select few of you will find something in Metal Machine Music that speaks to you.

But not for 64 minutes.

Though ferocious repetition is its calling card, it's also the album's ultimate liability. Metal Machine Music pounds and pounds and pounds away at you, but the greatest rock music does more than that, and it operates on different levels simultaneously to achieve its goals. Next time somebody complains about the sameness of the Ramones or any other punk band, advise them to check out Metal Machine Music. After about 14 minutes at any one time in the album, you simply go numb to its monolithic assault - you don't even fight the music anymore. You just accept it. Perhaps that's the point, but rock has to do more than just bring the noise. It has to try to find some sense in it. As a perfect example, see how the older, wiser Reed turns the 18-minute guitar-cry of Ecstasy's "Like a Possum" into a moving, troubling narrative on lust and acceptance. Unlike in his younger years, Reed harnesses his musical chaos into something more lasting - you hear the discord transform into clarity.

As exercises go, Metal Machine Music is an intriguing curiosity, a footnote, a good music-nerd conversation starter. But it's not some misunderstood masterpiece. It is, however, a hell of a lot of feedback. Some will say it's a necessary rite of passage; others will tell you that you could live a very happy life without ever needing it.

Sounds an awful lot like circumcision, huh? Well, wait 'til you hear it.

Tim Grierson's column, Diversions, appears every other Tuesday in Knot Magazine.

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