Lou Reed and Metallica: Lulu

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Put Lou Reed and Metallica in the same room and you have the “ingredients for a great record,” said Scott McLennan in The Boston Globe. Unfortunately, “the godfather of avant-rock and the popular metal band don’t click on any level” here, resulting in a “disappointing mess.” After Reed and Metallica performed together at a 2009 awards show, Reed wanted more from the collaboration than to merely re-record some of his old work and so wrote a series of song lyrics inspired by an early-1900s German play. But Reed deserves only so much credit for refusing to make this a nostalgia effort, said Thomas Conner in the Chicago Sun-Times. As Metallica “grinds away joylessly” at monotonous riffs, Reed applies his “thin, monotone voice” to some “god-awful poetry.” Its “vivid descriptions of spurting blood and murder” are meant to shock, but the “leaden nihilism drags down every track.”

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