Lou Reed & Metallica - Lulu

musicismylife78

Metallica is a really bizaare band to me. they seem to have two diametrically opposed things and factions going on. on the one hand they are a legendary band, whose first 4 albums are modern day classics. Then on the flip side you have everything theyve put out since then, including the black album all the way to Death Magnetic. You have the polished sound of the black album and everything since then that caused their metal purist fans to throw a fit, and you have a series of albums that have been met with less than enthusiastic responses, you have the gaffe of the century with Lars Ulrich coming in on the side of the record industry and trashing his own fans-something that i think has done immeasurable damage to them critically and fan wise, then the epic near unravveling of the band captured on Some Kind of Monster, the disaster that was St Anger, loudness wars, and now this album Lulu which has been universally trashed and been called the worst album of all time by more than a few critics.

Its amazing to me, you have these two ideas swimming at the same time, existing at the same time.

I think partially its the epicness and brilliance of their first 4 records that has caused some of this. They created masterpiece after masterpiece,and i think when they changed the sound and started creating records that sounded nothing like Master of Puppets or And Justice, people got disappointed, because what could possibly top One or Sanitarium?

pjfan021

one of the worst albums ever hands down. I'm a huge lou reed fan and dig metallica up to 91 album wise...neither band comes through well on this album..and the fact that they keep stroking each other in interivews like this is the best project ever makes it that much worse; almost like neither group/person wanted to tell the other how bad it came out. pure and utter garbage.

eeriepadave

Well i just heard "Iced Honey" on the local internet radio, y-not radio. Yay wow that was just bad. No harmony, sounded like they sang the song in two different rooms with no prior acknowledgement of getting together.

CarolineSays

Looks like Lou has found himself a new bunch of yes men. This is total crap. I doubt if I can even flog this on eBay...

And this was supposed to be a get well present from my husband. Looks like he wants me back in hospital...

rrivers

CarolineSays wrote:

And this was supposed to be a get well present from my husband. Looks like he wants me back in hospital...

Ha!

PearlJamaholic

not a big fan of metallica but ride the lightning and master of puppets are great.

Im a huge lou fan. even listened to metal machine music many times and enjoy it when in the mood for that sort of thing. throw in what ever odd thing lou has tried and ive heard most of his discography (at least through the 80s) ive either liked alot of it or it was cool to listen to and worth coming back to once in awhile.

but this! this is crap. ive never listened to all of st anger, only metallica album i havent heard. so maybe its the missing piece here but to me this is what i have heard of lulu... yes this is the only lou album i have not made it all the way through.

lulu = the murder mystery (vu) + metal machine music + st anger?

now the murder mystery is a good song and a fun 9 minutes of experimental rock music. but i cant see st anger being so bad it would take these separate weird but cool lou ideas and make something so awful.

The Oracle

WOW - thanks everyone, and I was considering buying it! I've never heard such a unanimous chorus of disapproval for an album ever.

wtf-is-this-world

For one thing, the mere idea of LOU REED + METALLICA makes the mind boggle (at least mine). I thought there was still something cool that could come out of it but hell NO. I admit I haven't listened to the whole thing but I know I wouldn't have the patience, I listened to a couple of tracks and it just seemed to drag on forever. I'm a pretty big Metallica fan and I can't help wondering WHY ON EARTH did they go and fetch Lou Reed to do something they would have been better off doing themselves? Both Lou Reed and Metallica are huge artists, widely respected and all, they just don't need each other, they don't need to go and get someone from another artistic planet to show us how they want to erase boundaries between genres. Plus, now I'm praying that there won't be a "Loutallica" joint tour or else Metallica will really shoot themselves in the foot and their (well-deserved) reputation as an ace live act will go down the drain.

Arthur Digby Sellers

I don't know what you all were expecting. Lou doesn't really sing so of course it's a weird combination. I have never been a fan of Metallica or Lou Reed outside VU, so maybe I didn't really have high expectations. I only downloaded it because of the horrible reviews and morbid curiosity. I was hoping for a laugh and I just listened to the first disc and thought it wasn't that bad at all. I didn't care for Iced Honey, but I thought Cheat On Me was pretty good. To me this record is kind of Sun Ra like and will not be an album you can listen to everyday. It's very experimental and not very catchy, but it's still got cool riffs and Lou Reed poetry so I think some of it works well at times. I guess Metallica fans aren't into avant garde records.

mookeywrench

Arthur Digby Sellers wrote:

I don't know what you all were expecting. Lou doesn't really sing so of course it's a weird combination. I have never been a fan of Metallica or Lou Reed outside VU, so maybe I didn't really have high expectations. I only downloaded it because of the horrible reviews and morbid curiosity. I was hoping for a laugh and I just listened to the first disc and thought it wasn't that bad at all. I didn't care for Iced Honey, but I thought Cheat On Me was pretty good. To me this record is kind of Sun Ra like and will not be an album you can listen to everyday. It's very experimental and not very catchy, but it's still got cool riffs and Lou Reed poetry so I think some of it works well at times. I guess Metallica fans aren't into avant garde records.

As a huge fan a Lou Reed and a fairweather fan of Metallica...this album sucks. This album is trying to be avant garde, except it's only out of touch. Lou Reed's "poetry" reads like pulp fiction. It is aimless and at times Lou even sounds lost in what he's wanting to say. It reminds me of someone winging their final speech in a public speaking class.

The music itself isn't moving any genres forward, it doesn't make you think outside the box, and it's so easy to digest after one listen. I just hear a group of people rushing through an album. You can tell they have an admiration for eachother, but it's to a fault. No one wanted to criticize anyone's role in the process.

Neil Bruce

I thought it was bad when I first heard it, but after seeing them on Jools Holland I can definitely say it's some of the worst music I've ever heard! True Story!

rrivers

Arthur Digby Sellers wrote:

I guess Metallica fans aren't into avant garde records.

And you would be right! I don't think Metallica fans are saying they are into avant garde records.

12345AGNST1

i think this is one of the few albums where you can officially declare as crap just from listening to 30 sec previews.

frazba

Ok, I enjoy 'Avant Garde' (for want of a better phrase) music, weird shit, you might call it, and I'm a big fan of Lou Reed, but this is just awful. I was actually embarrassed for both LR and Metallica when I watched Jools Holland the other night.
However, I predict that in 20 years this'll be hailed as a classic.

Exhibit A:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I5OtlKjzJo

Jason P

I would rather listen to Weezer's Make Believe album then LuLu ... that about sums it up.

PearlJamaholic

frazba wrote:

Ok, I enjoy 'Avant Garde' (for want of a better phrase) music, weird shit, you might call it, and I'm a big fan of Lou Reed, but this is just awful. I was actually embarrassed for both LR and Metallica when I watched Jools Holland the other night.
However, I predict that in 20 years this'll be hailed as a classic.

Exhibit A:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I5OtlKjzJo

Its hailed as a classic not because its great but because it was a new idea. and in some regard considered the first noise/ambient album. lulu presents nothing new and will probably be less remembered than lou reeds the bells which is one of the first albums to use binaural recording (but not even lou's first at this) but at least that album had some good tracks. i mean the bells is a pretty awesome song itself.

lulu has no clever ideas thrown in, nothing new, and nothing great. it would be something else if the album took advantage of a 5.1 or 7.1 soundscape or something. the album might have even worked if the channels of lou talking and the music were separated enough that it sounded like someone talking to another person in a bar with a band playing in the background. but you cant pull off an illusion like that with stereo recording. in stereo it just sounds like a bigger mess than what vu tried to do with the murder mystery.

Flagg

I'm not even going to bother with this.

MysteryTrain

Am I the only one here who actually likes this album?

erocshifty

i got my so what lulu issue a couple of days ago. i bought the album when it came out. i had been delaying listening to it because of what i'd read & knew that it was going to be a challenge. after reading the mag & gaining some perspective i decided that i was ready. i love it. it's weird as shit, it's fucked up, dark, avant garde, verite' (i think that's the word i'm looking for)..raw. i also love st. anger for a lot of these same qualities. the only thing that could've been different is the end of junior dad. trim it down, so it would've fit onto 1 disc. but lou reed is lou reed & i get what he was going for. the music that metallica provides for the story is fitting. aggression at it's finest. a couple of the songs are actually catchy. will it be something i listen to daily? no. i will give it a frequent spin when the mood hits, though. i might even get the vinyl.

chadwick

youngster wrote:

As a huge Metallica fan I want to thank everyone who posted in this thread for saving me $12 on this album. With the reviews I have read, I will save my ears the trauma of listening to this. Thanks.

noooo


im listening now for the first time and i like it. i'm a simple dude who likes hard rock metal shit. this is nice and i am happy. reminds me of the album of the grateful dead doing bob dylan tunes.

so far i have listened to... white light white heat, and iced honey. all on youtube and both live versions. very nice.