Reception
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| Allmusic | |
| Rolling Stone | |
| Rolling Stone Album Guide | |
Like other releases by the group, the album's socially transgressive lyrical themes and avant-garde instrumentation challenged the popular music sensibilities at the time, creating a muted reception. The album briefly appeared on the Billboard 200, although only peaking at number 199. Despite its poor sales, the distorted, feedback-driven, and roughly recorded sound on White Light/White Heat became a notable influence on punk and experimental rock. In 2003, the album was ranked number 293 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, alongside other releases by the group.
As an example of the album's influence on punk music, British rock band Buzzcocks formed loosely after members followed an advertisement looking for musicians who could collaborate on a "Sister Ray" cover.
Read more about this topic: White Light/White Heat
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)