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"Lulu" - Lou Reed & Metallica
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IanB
IanB
6761 posts

Edited Sep 09, 2015, 08:29
Re: "Lulu" - Lou Reed & Metallica
Sep 09, 2015, 07:57
It's not a particularly good record but it is by no means the worst conceived idea or most boring music I have heard. It's just the wrong people doing it at the wrong time. If they had come together when their respective energies were at a peak. Say around the time of New York then it would have been fantastic. Is it really any worse an album than say Growing Up In Public or New Sensations (What Becomes A Legend Most aside)? If Ulver had made the exact same record with Lou then no one would care. It would be a misstep rather than an affront.

I have actually never met a metal fan that has even listened to it. A lot of the people who seem to hate Lulu with a passion are the metal-loathing folks who see Metallica as some kind of redneck band, dumbing down rock n roll and bringing uncool populist sounds into their space.

A violent angry Art Rock record based on those stories is actually a great concept. Problem is that there are virtually no rock acts in the world could out-angst, out-shock or out-ugly the Alban Berg version. The bar is just set too high. Lou would be one of the very few who could tackle it. Especially as Berlin owes more than a little to the whole atmosphere of Lulu and its unidealised story of exploitation, the self-harm that comes with obsession and the cost of pursuing self-determination at all costs.

As for the musical side Lou Reed was pretty obsessed with guitar sounds and the technology of amplification. Working with Hammett and Hetfield is really just an update on Hunter and Wagner in 73. I can easily imagine him hearing Metallica's two guitar crunch and thinking it to be the perfect bed for what he wanted to do with that story.
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