Following the news from the what the fuck department back in June that Metallica and Lou Reed had been collaborating on an album together comes the news that the unusual but certainly much anticipated venture is set for release in Australia on October 31st.
A new website has cropped up [www.loureedmetallica.com] which while only a holding page, shows one of the godfathers of punk and metal alongside the metal titans and reveals that the album will be released in North America on the 1st of November and a day earlier in the rest of the world. The photo was apparently taken by rock photographer extraordinaire Anton Corbijn, best known for his iconic shots of Joy Division and U2.
Details for the release of the album, let alone its title, are still sketchy; indeed both Reed and Metallica don’t have record deals at the moment. However, Reed, never one to mince his words, told New York Magazine that the album may be ‘the best thing done by anyone, ever.’
The former Velvet Underground front man revealed that the collaboration was inspired by songs he wrote for the staging of controversial German playwright Frank Wedekind’s notorious femme fatale Lulu plays, which explored favourite themes of Reed’s such as sado-masochism, homoeroticism and kinky sex.
Although they inspired the record, Reed has dismissed the idea that Metallica will be the house band in a Broadway production. “I don’t think Metallica wants to be a band on Broadway,” he laughed. “They’re metalheads. They’re not going to do that. But the version of the Lulu music I did with Metallica is awe-inspiring. It’s maybe the best thing done by anyone, ever. It could create another planetary system. I’m not joking, and I’m not being egotistical.”
