LOU REED & METALLICA - Lulu (out on October 31, 2011)

Will this album suck?

  • YES!

    Votes: 5 21.7%
  • Adrian Smith

    Votes: 15 65.2%
  • Probably

    Votes: 2 8.7%
  • NO!

    Votes: 1 4.3%

  • Total voters
    23

Night Prowler

Customer Deathcycle Manager
Staff member
METALLICA's official web site has been updated with the following message:

"A few months ago our own Kirk Hammett hinted at a new METALLICA project that's 'not really 100 percent a METALLICA record.' While Kirk may have jumped the gun a little (and has since been properly punished with a series of push-ups!), we are more than proud to announce that we have just completed recording a full-length album that is a collaboration with none other than the legendary Lou Reed.
"Ever since we had the pleasure of performing with Lou at the 25th anniversary of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame at Madison Square Garden in October of 2009, we have been kicking around the idea of making a record together. Some of you astute Bay Area residents may have picked up news of recent Lou Reed sightings in the greater San Francisco area and we have indeed been working at our home studio at [METALLICA headquarters in San Rafael, California] on and off over the last few months. In what would be lightning speed for a METALLICA-related project, we recorded ten songs during this time and while at this moment we're not exactly sure when you'll hear it, we're beyond excited to share with you that the recording sessions wrapped up last week.
"A true innovator and easily one of the most influential songwriters, musicians, and performers in rock music history, Lou's work with the VELVET UNDERGROUND and as a solo artist has such an enduring quality that he has long been revered and respected by us and many of our peers. We can't wait for you to listen to the finished record, so as we like to hear ourselves say around here, keep watching this spot for updates . . . we'll be back with more details as they come together."

I think it will be a good album, but not metal. Lou Reed rules :ok:
 
Re: METALLICA just finished recording an album with LOU REED!

This will end up being either really cool or a trainwreck .... I am hoping for really cool.
 
Re: METALLICA just finished recording an album with LOU REED!

I essentially agree with bearfan. It sounds unlikely enough to be either a good record or a failure.
 
Re: METALLICA just finished recording an album with LOU REED!

Based on Lou Reed and Metallica's output over the past 20 years, I am not expecting much. Although it seems that Tom Waits is working on a new album....
 
Re: METALLICA just finished recording an album with LOU REED!

Unexpected news. I like the fact that their recording time didn't take so long as usual. Who knows that aspect can have positive impact.
 
Re: METALLICA just finished recording an album with LOU REED!

I hope that the album will have a decent production and sound quality.
 
Re: METALLICA just finished recording an album with LOU REED!

It was an improbable match: Lou Reed's cutting-monotone voice and explicit stories of desire and despair, lashed to Metallica's apocalyptic charge. It is now a perfect fit. In a recent rapid series of sessions at Metallica's studio north of San Francisco, the New York king of avant-rock and the world's bestselling thrash-metal band have recorded a new studio album together that is unlike any either artist has made before. The record, not yet titled, features 10 songs composed by Reed with significant arrangement contributions by the band that suggest a raging union of his 1973 noir classic, Berlin, and Metallica's '86 crusher, Master of Puppets.     

"A marriage made in heaven," Reed says in his first interview about the project, in the studio lounge during a break. "I knew it from the first day we played together: 'Oh, man, this is perfection, right in front of me.'"
"I don't think we've ever felt this free," Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich says, sitting next to Reed on a couch. "There's nothing that's totally outside of the boundary for us, nothing that feels like 'Oh, what happens if we go there?' The strength of us" – he gestures at Reed – "is it feels like we cannot land on a wrong place."
"They're bringing Metallica, with all that power," Reed confirms. "And because they're pretty sophisticated, wherever I go, they're still with me."

Reed and Metallica first played together in October 2009, at the 25th Anniversary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concerts in New York. Ulrich, singer-guitarist James Hetfield, guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo backed Reed on two of his classic songs. "We knew from then," Reed says, "that we were made for each other." He and the band first planned to cut an album of his older material, "fallen jewels that no one remembered," as Reed puts it. That changed a week before Reed showed up at Metallica's studio. He called the band, proposing a record of songs he'd written for Lulu, a theatrical production of stories by the German author Frank Wedekind, directed by Robert Wilson and currently running in Berlin.

"Lars and I listened to the stuff," Hetfield says of Reed's demos, "and it was like, 'Wow, this is very different.' It was scary at first, because the music was so open. But then I thought, 'This could go anywhere.' " Metallica started writing parts built from vocal rhythms and electronic patterns on the demos.

The result is at once unpredictable and viciously tight. "Pumping Blood" opens with a drone that breaks into a crunching march, goes into speed-metal gear and breaks into free-fall sections – all over seven minutes, cut live in one take. Another track, "Mistress Dread," features Reed singing across a relentless staccato riff played at manic velocity. "It doesn't feel like we're his backup band," Hammett claims. "It feels like we're a different band, in a situation we've never been in before." And, Trujillo notes, "it's making us a better band."

Ulrich says the album is "90 percent" finished. But there are no release plans yet. Reed does not have a record deal, and Metallica are no longer on Warner Bros. "We are free to go wherever," Ulrich says. "I'm obviously psyched for people to hear this, in whatever way we feel is right."

Hetfield has one condition. "I told Lou I want to be there when people hear it," he says, grinning. "I want to see their faces."

I just hope that they will record a normal Metallica album after this.
 
Re: METALLICA just finished recording an album with LOU REED!

hmm. Interesting. I'm interested to see how this one comes out.
 
Re: METALLICA just finished recording an album with LOU REED!

The issue that Foro talked about, I think the fact that the recording didn't take so much time is a good thing because I think of it as a sign of spirit and desire to make something good. I'm looking forward for a normal Metallica studio album also, Death Magnetic was great, except for the production. I hate the new "noisier=better" consideration.

I hope it will be good.
 
Re: METALLICA just finished recording an album with LOU REED!

reedtallicarelease.jpg
 
Re: METALLICA just finished recording an album with LOU REED!

So, Reed looks cool on that picture. The rest look like a bunch of 40 year olds posing as 18 year olds.
 
Re: METALLICA just finished recording an album with LOU REED!

He looks like he's a bit scared.
 
Re: METALLICA just finished recording an album with LOU REED!

I'm really hoping they gave Trujillo room to play on this record. He's an astoundingly good player, and hasn't had much chance to show it in Metallica.
 
Re: METALLICA just finished recording an album with LOU REED!

I'm still not sure what this album is. Is it a tribute album or a collaboration?
 
Re: METALLICA just finished recording an album with LOU REED!

SinisterMinisterX said:
I'm really hoping they gave Trujillo room to play on this record. He's an astoundingly good player, and hasn't had much chance to show it in Metallica.

Yup. Keep in mind that Metallica almost neglected bass after 1986. Old habits...but I agree that on this record we can get some real output from Trujillo.

He's even a better guitar player than Kirk  :D
 
Re: METALLICA just finished recording an album with LOU REED!

Almost? They forgot the bass in one of their records.  :lol:
 
Re: METALLICA just finished recording an album with LOU REED!

I'm not really looking forward to it tbh. I might pick it up.
 
Re: METALLICA just finished recording an album with LOU REED!

I only have one 'Tallica album. If I'm going to pick one up it makes more sense to get one of the early ones.
 
Re: METALLICA just finished recording an album with LOU REED!

After I get all my Maiden dealt with, I might pick up Ride the Lightning.
 
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