Review: ‘Lulu’ by Metallica & Lou Reed

bill bodkin literally looses his mind in this review …

I’d like to warn readers that I will be going off reservation in this review. I try to be as impartial and fair as possible and try like hell to avoid interjecting myself into a review by using the word I.

However, this is Metallica. This my all-time favorite band. They’ve been my favorite band since I discovered the beauty of “Master Of Puppets,” “For Whom The Bell Tolls” and “Enter Sandman” during the hot and humid summer of 1996 on 89.5-FM, Seton Hall University’s famed heavy-metal station.

And since then, it hasn’t been easy being a ‘Tallica fan. No, not at all. There was the haircuts, Load, Reload, firing Jason Newsted, lashing out against Napster, St. Anger, the (thankfully) forgotten collaboration with Ja Rule. And for all these humungous blunders, I’ve backed the band up. I’ve been their biggest apologist. This is my band. I have a love for this band. they’ve created some of my favorite pieces of music. They’re allowed mistakes, right?

And then came Death Magnetic — that beautiful hybrid of pure ’80s metal metal, horns-in-the-air aggression, speed and violence with the production wizardy of Rick Rubin. It was brilliant, a classic. And then they toured with Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax — how fucking cool is that? Metallica giving their fans something awesome. Returning to their speed metal roots.

Then they went and did this. They teamed with Lou Reed. One of the most over-hyped and over-praised musicians I’ve ever heard. I apologize that I’m a musical journalist and don’t have an altar built to Lou made out of vinyl records and Hunter S. Thompson novels. I’m sorry that my jeans don’t get tight in the crotch area when his song comes on the radio. And no that’s not a fucking typo — he’s got one song, and it sucks. In essence, I can’t stand Lou Reed at all. I respect his contributions to the music world — he inspired tons of musicians to create wonderful music. Yes, he’s a musical icon. Doesn’t mean I have to like him.

But even though I can’t stand Lou Reed, I still bought the record he did with Metallica — because I love Metallica that much.

When the CD started, here’s what came over my car stereo …

I would cut my legs and tits off/When I think of Boris Karloff and Kinski/In the dark of the moon.

Hey Metallica … fuck you.

Listening to Metallica and Lou Reed’s album Lulu is like listening to those exact words from Metallica. It’s a fuck you to their fans. This album is one of the worst pieces of music I’ve ever listened to. And this is coming from the guy who bought Russell Crowe’s 30 Odd Foot Of Grunts record to review. Yeah … Lulu is WORSE than a Russell Crowe record. Eat that, ‘Tallica.

Why am I so angry? Because Metallica wasted their time creating a record with Lou Reed. Instead of creating a new record, riding the sea of momentum from Death Magnetic, they take 100 steps back by creating an album that everyone seems to universally hate. Congratulations Metallica, everyone hates you again. Is that what you want?

And I’m going to concede this — if this was a Metallica record with lyrics by Lou Reed and no vocals by Lou Reed, I bet this would have be an awesome record. The lyrics on Lulu are dark, vicious, macabre … perfect fodder for Metallica songs. But instead we get the mad ramblings of a man who sounds like he just shot heroin and cocaine at the same time and then drank a case of Red Bull. It’s just stupid crazy like that analogy. One second he’s mumbling, the next he’s yelling, the next he’s doing the worst Johnny Cash impression in history. It’s just infuriatingly bad.

And Metallica can’t escape the blame. They just seem to be playing whatever they want. It’s like Metallica went in one room and recorded some thrash and then Reed was in the next and just did his vocals. Some hack editor spliced them together, and BANG — here’s the bowl of dog shit that is Lulu.

So I think that you can gather that is a pretty terrible record. I do not recommend you buy Lulu, even as a joke present for a friend. You’d actually be a terrible friend, one who doesn’t care about music, life or anything pure and good in the world.