One of rock music' s most enigmatic and confounding artists is here revealed as never before through the diffuse lens of his most extreme work: Metal Machine Music. Initially dismissed as fake avant-garde or a calculated insult, over the course of a half century it has acquired a growing number of open-eared music fans, becoming a kind of secret handshake of hipness. Lou Reed: Metal Machine Mystic is the first book ever to focus on Metal Machine Music as the key to understanding its creator. Entertaining and provocative, drawing on extensive research and fresh interviews, it reveals the secrets of the album' s making and its purpose, as well its immediate aftermath, astonishing rehabilitation, and continuing influence.