Zero Tolerance for Silence

Infobox Album | Name = Zero Tolerance for Silence
Type = Album
Artist = Pat Metheny


Released = 1994
Recorded = December 16, 1992
Length = 39:14
Genre = Noise
Label = Geffen Records
Producer = Pat Metheny
Reviews =
*Allmusic (1.5/5) [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:iqjw7ip8g7xr link]
Last album = "The Road to You"
(1993)
This album = "Zero Tolerance for Silence"
(1994)
Next album = "We Live Here"
(1995)

"Zero Tolerance for Silence" is a controversial 1994 album by American jazz guitarist Pat Metheny.

Recorded for Geffen Records, it was performed entirely on guitar, although all of the tracks were overdubbed ("Part 5" also contains an acoustic guitar amongst the overdriven electric guitars.) The music consists of relentless and intricate textures of noise guitar and blues-like solos, quite unlike Metheny's usual style, and caused a division of opinion among listeners. Some, including many of Metheny's most devoted fans, felt that the album was a cataclysmic artistic mistake, and fan forums have from time to time attempted to pressure Metheny into disowning the recording. He has declined to do so, although Geffen quietly allowed it to fall out of print towards the end of the 1990s. In a 2008 interview, Metheny was asked to respond to an internet rumor that the album was conceived as a "'poke in the eye' to Geffen records":

That rumor was started by a journalist who was seriously "not" listening to the album. All it would have taken was a quick phone call [to me] to find out that that wasn't the case. Besides, I would never do something like that. It isn't the way I operate, which I think has been pretty self-evident over the years. That record speaks for itself in its own musical terms. To me, it is a 2-D view of a world in which I am usually functioning in a more 3-D way. It is entirely flat music, and that was exactly what it was intended to be. [cite journal
last = Gold
first = Jude
title = Full Contact Musicology
journal = Guitar Player
volume = 42
issue = 9
pages = 102
publisher = Newbay Media
location = San Bruno, CA
date = September 2008]

The cover carried an endorsement by Sonic Youth guitarist/singer Thurston Moore, hailing Metheny as a "master". Critics have generally been less kind; Ben Watson of the music magazine "The Wire" described it as "rubbish". The album continues, however, to have devoted listeners.

Track listing

#"Part 1" – 18:32
#"Part 2" – 5:17
#"Part 3" – 4:19
#"Part 4" – 5:13
#"Part 5" – 5:53

Notes

References

* Ben Watson (2004), Derek Bailey and the Story of Free Improvisation, Verso, ISBN 1-84467-003-1