Albums to watch

Lulu

Lou Reed & Metallica

Lulu

Collaboration between the former Velvet Underground frontman and the heavy metal quartet inspired by the work of playwright Frank Wedekind

ADM rating[?]

4.1

Label
Vertigo
UK Release date
31/10/2011
US Release date
01/11/2011
  1. 8.5 |   Uncut

    The most extraordinary, passionate and just plain brilliant record either participant has made for a long while
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  2. 8.0 |   State

    Lulu is, while not quite the best thing either party has ever done, certainly the best new material either has come up with in some time
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  3. 8.0 |   The Digital Fix

    Haters? We give you a middle-digit, proudly raised
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  4. 8.0 |   Mojo

    The shock in this collaboration is that it sounds savagely natural. Print edition only

  5. 7.0 |   NME

    Prententious? Oui. Self-important? Natch. Any cop? Pretty damn fine actually. Print edition only

  6. 6.0 |   Daily Telegraph

    It’s the sheer sense of unrestrained folly throughout that makes Lulu feel like an important album
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  7. 6.0 |   BBC

    An unsettling and relentless assault that is more artistic instillation than rock opera.
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  8. 6.0 |   Rolling Stone

    Things can get ponderous once Metallica start impatiently stomping, but often they turn Reed's pretensions into something muscular
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  9. 5.0 |   Paste Magazine

    It’s not an especially good album, but its failures are noble rather than ignoble—byproducts of ambition rather than hubris. In a weird way, that makes its flaws more sympathetic and turns it into something of a grower
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  10. 4.0 |   The Scotsman

    The soundtrack for a painful and slow artistic bankruptcy
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  11. 4.0 |   Clash

    Some people have already dismissed this as one of the worst albums ever recorded. It’s not that bad. But neither is it a patch on the best art that Reed and Metallica have produced
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  12. 4.0 |   No Ripcord

    Up until Lulu, I didn’t think it was possible to be both enamored and disgusted at the same time. Mind? Blown
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  13. 4.0 |   Rave Magazine

    There’s enough substance to Lulu to understand why the record was made … but not a whole lot more to convince you that it’s worth listening to
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  14. 4.0 |   The Observer

    There's precious little else to recommend about this unlikely project
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  15. 4.0 |   Q

    It's so over the top the more likely reaction is to turn it off and make sure you don't hear it again in a hurry. Print edition only

  16. 4.0 |   The Skinny

    Lulu ultimately smacks of a botched experiment that both parties were just too proud to abort
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  17. 4.0 |   The Guardian

    It's impossible to over-emphasise just how gruelling the hour-and-a-half you spend in the company of Lou Reed and Metallica is
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  18. 4.0 |   The Independent

    Steeped in art-house self-regard, mired in the vilest extremes of perversion and misery, barked out with as little human warmth as its practitioners can muster and its leaden tortures drawn out to unbearable lengths
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  19. 3.0 |   AU Review

    Little more than the bizarre torture rape fantasy of a 69-year-old sadistic narcissist. It’s not so much shocking as it is pathetic
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  20. 3.0 |   Beats Per Minute

    The whole thing comes off as either an expensive major label joke or nigh-impenetrable high art concept. Maybe both
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  21. 3.0 |   Sputnik Music (staff)

    The fallout from this could have dire consequences. A lot of people, already placing Metallica at the best seat in the house at the Last Chance Saloon have now called last orders
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  22. 3.0 |   Consequence Of Sound

    Lulu is a complete failure on every tangible and intangible level of its existence
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  23. 2.5 |   A.V. Club

    Not merely a failure, but one of the bravest, most fascinating failures in rock history
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  24. 2.0 |   Tiny Mix Tapes

    A joyless mess, a grim, humorless record
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  25. 2.0 |   Entertainment.ie

    At no point during this record is anything presented to the listener that is digestible, let alone good
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  26. 2.0 |   Blurt

    Self-indulgent, not especially well thought out and often pointless
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  27. 1.0 |   Pitchfork

    Audacious to the extreme, but exhaustingly tedious as a result, its few interesting ideas are stretched out beyond the point of utility and pounded into submission-- the average song length clocks in at eight excruciating minutes
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  28. 1.0 |   PopMatters

    May be the most disappointing album in a decade
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  29. 1.0 |   God Is In The TV

    Lulu is a profoundly depressing, hideously self-indulgent, staggeringly infantile and totally unforgivable mess that was somehow produced by grown-ass men. Everyone involved should be banned from recording, should never be allowed to sell another gig ticket, and should, above all else, be ashamed
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  30. 1.0 |   The Quietus

    Not only is Lulu the worst thing any of the players have been involved in, it's quite possibly a candidate for one of the worst albums ever made
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