2/5

If ever there was a vanity project to spoil the reputation of iconic artists, it’s this one.

Lou Reed and Metallica are institutions in their own right - at their peak – both purveyors of doom coupled with a thrilling musical escape, stacked with street level credentials. At this low point however, they’re merely aging rockers with delusions of grandeur.

Combine the join-the-dots predictability of Metallica over the last 20 years with a Lou Reed who has seemingly lost his street-wise wit to a rambling script, landing in the wrong lap.

The result is ‘Lulu’ an album where Lou Reed’s drawl drowns in the quicksand sludge of a never—ending-boring -jam.

This combination may have fired when they joined forces on 2009’s ‘Rock n Roll Hall of Fame’ gig with a live version of ‘Sweet Jane’ but any further crossover can only be viewed as ‘cash cow v cool cred’ - Lou Reed trying to do something with a mainstream vein - before he starts doing the grandpa voice-overs on ‘The Simpsons’ - and Metallica hooking up with an underground godfather.

The genesis of the idea was to record a series of songs Reed had written for American avant-garde theater director Robert Wilson and German theater group the Berliner Ensemble’s production of the Lulu Plays, which premiered in April at the Theatre am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin, founded by Bertolt Brecht. The songs are inspired by German expressionist Frank Wedekind’s early 20th century plays ‘Earth Spirit’ and ‘Pandora’s Box’, and were a rewrite of Edgar Allan Poe's, ‘The Raven’, which emerged as a graphic novel on Fantagraphics Press.

With grand intentions, Lou Reed has taken a wrong turn, and meet Metallica on a dead end street.

“It’s definitely not a Metallica album, or a Lou Reed album,” Metallica’s Kirk Hammett suggests. “It’s something else. It’s a new animal, a hybrid.”

Damn straight! Cowboy! The whole album sounds like a bunch of guys with too much whisky, too much time on the ranch… and not many ideas!

The last song on Disc 2 – ‘Junior Dad’ is the only saviour, a 19 minute odyssey that taps into some of Lou Reed’s seminal territory, a dream-pop hum-a-long, without the bludgeoned efforts of James Hetfield attempting to sing.

This is a reminder of the dangers when legendary rock stars experience ‘supergroup psychosis.’

It did send me back to the great times though - digging out Metallica’s ‘One’ and Lou Reed’s ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ - both high watermarks for their time.

It’s a pity, the premise seems so much better than the product.

It could have been so much better… but it’s not.

As a saving grace – check out the footage of vintage times.

Lou Reed

Metallica