Metallica - Lulu (2011)^{Release ID: 46}

Alright, so I am the odd duck that actually likes this album. I will try my best to explain. 

First off if you are coming to this album as a Metallica fan, hoping for the next headbanger anthem... yeah it's not on here. You are going to be disappointed. However, if instead you come to this as a Lou Reed fan... well there is still no guarantee that you will like it, but it will make more sense. So... what is this thing and why do I like it? 

Lulu is based on the "Lulu" plays by Frank Wedekind, and the two pieces tell a continuous story of a sexually enticing young dancer who rises in society through her relationships with wealthy men but who later falls into poverty and prostitution. The album is heavily inspired by those works, but I have not read them so I can't say for sure if it is a literal retelling of that story or if it just heavily inspired by it. I can say that it has a lot of lyrics that seem to be spoken through that type of character, and yes it comes across oddly when spoken by a 70 year old man. Also the production on this thing could have been better. 

What? You aren't sold on it after that juicy insight? I don't blame you this was not an album that was going to work for everybody... most people... some people... anybody? It works for me because I like weird things, I like Lou Reed, and I like poetry. This album is simply spoken word poetry set to music, and I like the poetry within. There are definitely some offputting lines, some outright misses, and some extremely awkward and uncomfortable moments, but there is also a lot of heart break and beauty. Good art is sometimes uncomfortable and offensive.

Perhaps for me this album is as much about what it isn't as what it is. I've already talked about what it is; awkard, uncomfortable, poorly produced, yet also incredibly poetic and artistic. It isn't commercial, easy, sold-out, or concerned with pleasing anyone. People often say that they want honest output from an artist, and there is much talk of "evil record companies" that don't allow an artist to produce the product they want to make. This is an album free of any such restraints, and expectations it is a genuine piece of art made by artists who sincerely wanted to pursue this project. Everybody says they want it, but we all have seen how it was received. Personally, I like what it stands for. I also think that "Iced Honey" is an awesome piece of work. 

I have defended this album for ten years at time of this posting. I will continue to defend  it for at least the next ten years, probably longer. What I hoped to achieve with this review is to get across the idea that I don't just like the album as a symbol of unfiltered art, I also genuinely enjoy the music and lyrics within-the good and the bad.

I loved ‘Load’. I loved ‘Reload’. I didn’t mind when they did a covers album, or played with an orchestra. And I was one of the 17 people (including the band themselves… maybe) who actually liked ‘St. Anger’. But with ‘Lulu’, Metallica (and Lou Reed, for that matter), have finally achieved their goal of making one of, if not THE, absolute worst album in music history.

The collaborative project between musical giants Metallica and Lou Reed, ‘Lulu’ is a 2011 concept double-album, and while the project initially sparked people’s interest, the results very quickly became the subject of universal criticism.

And rightfully so.

I always give every album a fair number of listens, even ones I don’t enjoy, hoping that something might just click or pique my interest after multiple listens. I listened to ‘Lulu’ three times, and it’s been the three most tedious experiences I’ve had to endure. The songs are boring, the lyrics are awful, and the mash-up between Metallica’s heavy metal and Lou Reed’s weird style of talk-singing, or sing-talking, just don’t work.

Musically, the album COULD have been okay. If James Hetfield was singing and this was another Metallica foray into alternative or art rock, it might have been listenable. But it’s not. There’s lyrical gems like “I would cut my legs and tits off when I think of Boris Karloff”, and a song where Reed spends eight minutes asking “why do you cheat on me”, and the whole time I hearing this, I’m picturing Lars Ulrich at some art gallery, trying to be all deep and introspective. But in reality, this is all an absolute pile of nonsense.

Nothing can redeem this album, and the only reason I have to keep it in my collection is because it’s Metallica, and I have some rubbish OCD collector thing going on, that makes me need to keep it. Just don’t even bother.

Well you certainly couldn't say that Metallica was lacking in the ambition department with this release. It's about as far from a commercial venture as you can get which subsequently shocked most people. Therefore it's not really surprising that "Lulu" has been crucified as badly as it has either. Metallica fans have a very distinct idea of what they expect from their heroes & although their output has fallen well short of the mark in recent times they had definitely been seen to be making some sort of attempt to steer the ship back towards the course their fan base was demanding.  

"Lulu" is a very deliberate experiment with a more art-driven & textural approach. I like to keep an open mind & make my own judgements in situations like these so I've tried my best not to pay attention to the fact that it has been universally labelled a complete failure but after giving it a few listens it's hard to ignore the obvious faults. Firstly this double album requires an enormous amount of effort to sit through given it's ridiculously long playing time & the over-the-top run-time of the individual songs. Many of these songs possess only a single idea that has been stretched out to the extreme so that even if the original idea appealed to you it is likely that you will be tired of it half way through the track. Some of the ideas presented are quite interesting but the execution is simply not up to scratch. I honestly feel that there was a very decent Metallica album in here somewhere but Lou Reed's performance on half of these tracks is out of place & quite frankly bewildering. It is definitely not out of line to suggest that Lou sounds like he is performing over a different backing track altogether at times.  

If we look at the individual tracks there are some absolute clangers. Opener "Brandenburg Gate", the disgusting "Iced Honey" & the utterly disgraceful eleven & a half minutes of "Cheat On Me" are very difficult to come to terms with. James Hetfield's vocal performance is about as bad as you can possibly imagine & it's difficult to understand what he was thinking at times. But then there are some tracks where Metallica kick into a great riff & you feel things starting to take shape only to find that there really wasn't any more ideas. "The View", "Mistress Dread" & "Dragon" are good examples of this. There honestly aren't any actual songs! It's basically just poetry being read over the top of the music with no real structure or hooks. Nineteen minute closer "Junior Dad" is the only track where everything falls into place & you get the feeling that this could be due to the fact that it's musically a lot closer to Lou Reed's comfort zone. I really quite like this track & it saves the album from being a complete disaster.  

"Lulu" is a fine example of some good ideas ruined by poor execution & self-indulgence. Some of these tracks showed promise but only one was able to reach it's full potential. I'd be very surprised if Metallica did not agree with me on this. If given the chance I think they might like to go back & redo this as a single album of more compact & structured songs. A release of this type requires much more thought & planning than we can see evidence of here.