Without question, Metallica‘s 2011 collaborative album “Lulu” with Lou Reed remains the most divisive album of their catalog. Given the stylistic shifts found on 1996’s “Load” and the infamous snare sound present on 2003’s “St. Anger“, that’s certainly saying something.
A 10-song concept album, “Lulu” served as the last full-fledged album from Reed, who passed away at the age of 71 in October of 2013. Many listeners decried the brash pairing found on that record, unable to reconcile the vast divide between Reed‘s impassioned spoken word vocals atop Metallica‘s brasher offerings.
In a newly published book ‘The Art of the Straight Line: My Tai Chi‘ from Reed about his passion for Tai Chi and his life and times, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich reflected back on that record, feeling it was unfairly judged.
Ulrich is quoted as saying of “Lulu” in the book:
“What the fuck is it about Lulu that it got that kind of reaction? I can’t quite figure it out, but years later, it’s aged extremely well. It sounds like a motherfucker still. So I can only put the reaction down to ignorance…
It took our fans to a place I wish they would go more often. Maybe it would be a better time to release it now with what’s going on outside in the world, the chaos. I don’t know, but I am very proud of this record… James [Hetfield, Metallica vocalist/guitarist] and I would be figuring out ways through a piece of music and then Lou would look over and go, ‘That’s it. I’m not doing another fucking take of that.’ That’s not the way we usually worked, but it was so beautiful and great, the whole thing.”
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