A few days ago the day of reckoning for Metallica fans arrived as the group officially released their collaboration Lulu with Lou Reed onto millions of otherwise unsuspecting fans. You would have thought given the excellent press campaign the group embarked on prior to the release of the record that just about everyone had already heard it.
You’d be wrong, and now that they’re hearing it they’ve been whipped into a frenzy with some even sending death threats to Reed. “Metallica’s fans are threatening to shoot me, and that’s only because I showed up,” he said in an interview with USA Today. “They haven’t even heard the record yet, and they’re recommending various forms of torture and death. I don’t have any fans left. After Metal Machine Music (1975), they all fled. Who cares? I’m essentially in this for the fun of it.”
But the fallout doesn’t surprise Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, who admitted recently that he has very little in the way of good judgement when he rejected an offer from Quentin Tarantino. Ulrich gave his thoughts on the Lulu fallout saying “In 1984, when hard-core Metallica fans heard acoustic guitars on Fade to Black, there was a nuclear meltdown in the heavy-metal community. There have been many more since then. This is something they’ve never heard. Nobody hears rhythms or delivers poetry the way Lou does. It’s not for everyone, but I think it’s a fantastic record.”
Ulrich is quick to point out however to incredulous fans that this should be viewed in no way as a Metallica record. “No, no, no, not even,” he said. “This is a one-off project. It’s a new collective.” Reed however doesn’t think his work is done and would like to continue the collaboration. “No one wants Lulu Part 2,” Reed said. “But on Radio Lou, in my head where I hear these songs, I want more of it.”
You can read our review of Lulu, where we gave it a 3/10 here
