Lou Reed and Metallica - Lulu

Metallica were a band I was deeply invested in at around the ages of 10 through to 15. That’s a large section of someone’s life, especially at such a young age. I fell in love with the Black Album and Load was the first album I ever bought with my own money and at that time it might have been the first time I wanted to buy a CD instead of a PlayStation game.

I listened to every album religiously, even St. Anger. In fact I probably listened to St. Anger almost exclusively for months on end just because it was the new Metallica album. By the time Death Magnetic (horrible title) came out I was over Metallica and to be honest I felt the album was kind of boring. We’ll see where this one goes.

The album begins with Brandenburg Gate where the first lyrics in the song are:

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

I think I’ve made my mind up, almost nothing in recent times has grabbed my with a single verse like that. This is art. It takes a certain amount of emotion to want to cut your legs and tits off, and this isn’t experienced by many people. This is a fascination insight into Lou Reed’s psyche. And then James Hetfield comes in and says something in his James Hetfield voice to remind you that this is a Metallica collaboration. And then Lou Reed comes in and says something in his James Hetfield voice to remind you that this is a Lou Reed and Metallica project. The lyrics have basic rhyming structure that pays homage to Syd Barrett.

In The View some of the strains of the collaboration begin to show. This is kind of like that song on The Beatles White Album “Paul, Why Don’t You Just Fuck Off #9”. Lou tells Metallica that ‘I want to see your suicide’ and ‘you worship someone who actively despises you.’ Hetfield is obviously taking a lot of this to heart when he says “I am the table.” The genius is how multifaceted this lyric is. It explains James’ frustration at his band being reduced to musical furniture on what was supposed to be a fair collaboration. It also references the time Reed ate food off of him.

Pumping Blood is about all the things a heart can do. Primarily this includes pumping blood, making you waggle your ass like a dark prostitute and playing some not very compelling music. It also has some interesting juxtaposition between sexuality and violence in the same vein as the end of Apocalypse Now where Charlie Sheen’s dad kills Don Corleone while Jim Morrison says ‘fuck me’ over and over, whilst proving that ‘winning’ is genetic.

Mistress Dread is the albums love song. A love song that goes into bloodplay and coprophagia, but love is a difficult beast and it’s an interesting journey through some of the darker corners the path of true happiness winds down. Iced Honey continues with the themes of the unpredictability of life. The progressive side of the album kicks in with Cheat On Me. It continues some of the earlier themes but is lyrically a very direct and compelling work. My favourite line is ‘I am a passionateless wave on the sea.’ This is Shakespearean because it makes up a word. 

Frustration is a song I can relate to because I was frustrated the other day. The song does a great job of capturing the moment of frustration. The bit that’s too artistic for me is the bit where he talks about being ‘dry and spermless like a girl’. In my experience that does very little to help so it must be a metaphor. Little Dog is a commentary on the role of status in the 21^st century. Kind of like Working Class Hero, but Working Class Dog. Dragon has an element of Beat poetry, but with a drone instead of a beat. Drone poetry. It them kicks up a notch with a solid rock beat and becomes beat poetry again. The line:

Do you think we're a book
Some kind of a table
You can rest your feet on when you're able

Indicates that Reed and Metallica have settled their differences and now eat off of each other equally. This means they can focus their efforts into the centrepiece of the album, the epic Junior Dad. This is definitely the longest Metallica song and at about nineteen minutes is nearly as long as the first seven minutes of Sister Ray by The Velvet Underground. It’s a dense soundscape which pulls all of the previous themes together and also add the new theme of drowning.

Serious review: 

Does this count as two? I was dreading this but to be honest I actually think some of it’s pretty good. It’s probably one of the better Metallica albums and intentional or not it’s the closest to ‘weird music’ that I’ve heard that’s recent and from A-list popular music royalty. The second half is worth more than the first, the huge exception being Brandenburg Gate. The lyrics make no sense to the point of self parody yet have absolute conviction in them. Junior Dad is the new ‘typical’ Lou Reed song for me, overtaking Andy’s Chest, which come to think of it makes no sense either. It’s also musically my favourite one thing Metallica have worked on in a long time. When I heard about Death Magnetic being more ‘Justice-like’ this is kind of what I had in mind. Maybe the overlength of the track kind of reminds me of the pacing of The Lovely Bones (in a bad way) especially considering the length of the album as it is but to be honest I think it’s an okay album. Not sure what the concept is supposed to be though.

And it's cool that it was uploaded for free. Not sure what the commerical strategy is there though.