Editing MC5 (section)

===1970–1971: ''Back in the USA'' and ''High Time''===
Their second album, ''[[Back in the USA (album)|Back in the USA]]'', produced by future [[Bruce Springsteen]] mentor [[Jon Landau]], virtually provided a prototype for punk rock with its short, fast, hard-edged angry guitar rock. Released on Atlantic with a vastly different production and marketing effort, the band's sound radically differed from ''Kick Out the Jams'', to such an extent that, except for Tyner's vocals, they were "barely recognizable as the same band."{{sfn|McLeese|2005|p=96}} The second album's production also sounded compressed and somewhat limited in the band's sonic palette compared to their earlier — band members later said that Landau was overbearing and heavy-handed in production, trying to shape the group to his own liking.
 
Reviews were again mixed, resulting in mediocre sales (it only peaked at #137 in the American charts in March 1970 during a seven-week stay), while the band's tours were not as well-received as before. Exhaustion was partly to blame, from the band's heavy touring schedule and increasingly heavy drug use.
 
They had fallen out with Sinclair as well, and were conspicuously not allowed to play at the December 1971 [[John Sinclair Freedom Rally]], organized to protest his incarceration on marijuana possession, even though they were at the gig.{{citation needed|date=May 2011}}
The band's third album, ''[[High Time (MC5 album)|High Time]]'', produced by Geoffrey Haslam and recorded by [[Artie Fields]],<ref>{{cite web|last=Austin |first=Dan |url=http://historicdetroit.org/building/alhambra-theatre/ |title=Alhambra Theatre — Historic Detroit |website=Historicdetroit.org |access-date=March 14, 2016}}</ref> proved influential on 1970s hard rock bands. The album was poorly promoted, and sales were worse than ever, but ''High Time'' was the best-reviewed of the band's original records upon its initial release. The group had much more creative control, and were very satisfied with the results. This release saw the band stretch out with longer, more experimental pieces like "Future/Now" and the [[Sun Ra]]-influenced "Skunk (Sonicly Speaking)" [sic].