Send "Lou Reed and Metallica " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 Just when you thought Metallica might gain some ground on their way back from being hated by almost everyone you know, they come out with what may be the most disappointing album in a decade. With the release of Lulu, a collaboration between Lou Reed and Metallica (or, as the media has dubbed them, Loutallica), they not only built up the excitement of the world for what could have been a phenomenal record, but they let us down harder than the last episode of Seinfeld. Except far fewer people will forgive Metallica. But, it’s not all Metallica’s fault, nor is it Lou Reed’s. On paper, it’s one of the more ambitious and exciting projects that has actually come to fruition in years. It’s safe to say that the majority of Metallica fans, the majority of Lou Reed fans, and the majority of critics, were excited to hear it. If you’ve listened to music even once in the last 30 years, chances are you were intrigued when you heard about this album. They had a major opportunity to create a piece of music, a piece of art, that would not only transcend each of their careers, but that could equally redefine genres and make an impact on all music as we know it today. All the building blocks are there, and there is a good reason why I’ve had it on repeat for the last week. Unfortunately, this album fails to live up to its natural hype. Lou Reed, both on his own and with the Velvet Underground, pioneered a new soundscape altogether. Granted, not everything he made was successful, but that was one of the reasons his music is so important. With all the conventions he broke and risks he took, he’s left barely a stone unturned in his career. The bottoms of many of those stones were absolutely breathtaking, and he often turned some of the simplest ideas into works of pure genius. His idea for this project could have been another one, having hatched it from two German plays written around the turn of the 20th century. Frank Wedekind’s Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box, collectively known as the “Lulu” plays, are stories of a young girl’s life: her rise into fortune and successive demise, both on the hinges of sexuality. The premise alone is enough to draw some interest....full text |
| Thequietus |
| Let's be honest: ever since Lou Reed brought out his Tai Chi master for some muscle flexing as part of his live act, alarm bells have been ringing. Granted, he's always been a contrary bugger but watching someone stretch their legs over their head while Reed croaked his way through 'Perfect Day' was only going to induce uncontrollable guffaws rather than gasps of amazement. Similarly, Reed's decision to trample over his own 'Sweet Jane' and 'White Light/White Heat' with the aid of Metallica at the 2009 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 25th Anniversary Concert was met with incredulity and a sense that we all really were going to hell in a handcart. But surely things couldn't get any worse, right? Wrong. Rarely has one record induced such feelings of anger and utter revulsion. This isn't the decadence of chopping a few lines out, getting the nipple clamps on and kissing boots of shiny leather but an exercise in the worst kind of self-indulgence. Lulu's existence is offensive in the extreme. Not because of its sensibilities or mores – Lou's beseeching in 'Mistress Dread' to "Tie me with a scarf and jewels / Put a bloody gag to my teeth / I beg you to degrade me / Is there waste that I could eat?" is more chortlesome than shocking – but because it wastes so much of life's most precious commodity: time. We have but a short period on this earth and Lulu, spread over 95 – yes, 95! – tedious and excruciating minutes simply eats into time that could be more constructively spent watching the grass grow or perhaps wanking into a sock....full text |
| Telegraph |
| This remarkable collaboration between the world’s biggest heavy rock band and the world’s grumpiest Sixties rock legend germinated after the two parties performed together at a 25th anniversary concert for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in New York in 2009. Initially, they planned to record some vintage Reed numbers with value-added metal oomph. But Reed had been working on music for two plays by the German writer Frank Wedekind. He’d completed a huge sheaf of lyrics centring on the plays’ femme fatale central character. So he simply presented James Hetfield’s crew with the lyrics, and off they went. Lulu, however, is a very different breed of aural terror from the one Metallica usually create. Their gift has been to translate metal’s punishing speed and heaviness into world-beating, supremely crafted hit material. Here, by contrast, Reed’s words dictate the musical structure. Often, Metallica simply fall in behind them in a free-form drone. Like much of Reed’s late-period work, this is abstract and literary but even by his standards, Lulu is gruelling. He drawls a rambling stream-of-consciousness litany of spurting bodily fluids and dismemberment, emotional violence and godlessness, with little respite but for the comparatively mellow Iced Honey. However, it’s the sheer sense of unrestrained folly throughout that makes Lulu feel like an important album. Where contemporary rock, and Metallica themselves, are so minutely tailored for maximum commercial impact, here is a record which wilfully defies all that in the name of artistic purity....full text |
Lou Reed and Metallica lyrics
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