“Lulu” isn’t worth the few sentences I’m going to write about it. It is bad to the point of hilarity – a shameless collaboration between two artists well past their primes and taken with the utmost sincerity. To be fair, both Lou Reed and Metallica probably thought they were crafting the world’s greatest art-metal album and in the face of incredibly bad reviews will angrily claim that people don’t “get it”. Maybe we don’t, but fans of either or both artists will likely find nothing but disappointment across these 2 discs and nearly 90 minutes of excess and spoken-word curios. The inspiration for the project come from playwright Frank Wedekind, who wrote a series of staged productions about a woman seeking fame and fortune but instead winds up as a prostitute. It explains many of the batshit crazy lyrics that Reed atonally speak-sings for the duration of the record. Meanwhile Metallica try and throw some heavy metal firepower to back Reed’s disaffection, and James Hetfield pops up on the microphone now and then to try and add a little vocal color. He turns out to be more of an annoyance and distraction than a help in that case. There is so little redeeming about “Lulu” that you’ll likely have trouble getting through it from start to finish. The most entertaining part of listening through it at least once is because just when you think it couldn’t get any stranger, it does. With that, I’d like to present the 10 most jaw-dropping lyrics on the record, each individually worth its weight in comedy gold coming from Reed’s mouth:
“I would cut my legs and tits off when I think of Boris Karloff and Kinski…in the dark of the moon.” – Brandenburg Gate
“I want you on the floor/and in a coffin, your soul shaking/I want to have you doubting/every meaning you’ve amassed” – The View
“If I waggle my ass like a dark prostitute, would you think less of me and my coagulating heart?” – Pumping Blood
“I swallow your sharpest cutter/like a colored man’s dick/blood spurting from me/blood spurting from me” – Pumping Blood
“Tie me with a scarf and jewels/put a bloody gag to my teeth/I beg you to degrade me/is there waste that I could eat/I am a secret lover, I am your little girl/please spit into my mouth/I’m forever in your swirl” – Mistress Dread
“I puke my guts out at your feet/you’re more man than I/to be dead to have no feeling to be dry and spermless/like a girl” – Frustration
“Puny body and a tiny dick/a little dog can make you sick” – Little Dog
“The female dog don’t care what you got/as long as you can raise that little doggie face to a cold-hearted pussy/you could have a taste/a taste of what the big dog got” – Little Dog
“We do love to look upon your perfect body/the hair on your shoulders/the smell of your armpit/the taste of your vulva and everything on it/we all really love you/and you have no meaning” – Dragon
“I’m clawing your chest til your collarbone bleeds piercing your nipples til I fight them off/I scratch your face and bite your shoulders/way above caring/way above caring in your Kotex jukebox” – Dragon
These lyrics alone tell you more about “Lulu” than I ever could. To write paragraphs and paragraphs about this record would be as much of a waste of time as listening to it. This is by no means the worst record I’ve ever heard, but it’s easily the worst thing I’ve heard so far in 2011. I’d tell you to avoid it at all costs, but that’d probably push some to pick up a copy. It’s like a parent telling a teenager to stay away from a certain boy or girl because they’re trouble, and in some way that makes that boy or girl all the more compelling. So I’ll close with a video. Listening to “Lulu” may potentially cause the following to happen to you:
