- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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MojoJan 10, 2012The shock in this collaboration is that it sounds savagely natural. [Dec. 2011, p.93]
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Q MagazineDec 13, 2011Occasionally it's so insane that you can't help but be swept along with it. Mostly, however, it's so over the top the more likely reaction is to run it off and make sure you don't hear it again in a hurry. [Dec. 2011 p. 122]
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The WireDec 8, 2011Metallica's unrelenting sledgehammer style works as the perfect complement to Reed's vision of compassionless love, with monolithic chords deployed with almost surgical precision wile he dissects relationships w of masochism and power. [Dec 2011, p.63]
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Kerrang!Nov 17, 2011LuLu is an album that will require many plays before the music contained within beings to make sense. [29 Oct 2011, p.50]
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UncutNov 11, 2011While nothing else here is quiet as astonishing, ["Junior Dad" is] a perfect ending to the most extraordinary, passionate and just plain brilliant record either participant has made for a long while. [Dec 2011, p.80]
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Nov 11, 2011It's not truly terrible, but it does feel akin to a musical version of King Kong Vs. Godzilla, two monsters decimating everything in their path until there's nothing left, except the back catalogues.
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Nov 7, 2011Lulu sinks to almost unimaginable lows.
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Nov 4, 2011Up 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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Nov 2, 2011The godfather of avant-rock and the popular metal band don't click on any level.
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Nov 2, 2011It turns out that "Brandenburg Gate" is one of the only songs with an actual melody. The rest of Lulu is full of recycled, repetitive riffs; endless drones; more sex and violence than a slasher movie.
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Nov 2, 2011It takes some commitment, and maybe a little homework, to get the most out of the album.
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Nov 1, 2011It's not an especially good album, but its failures are noble rather than ignoble-byproducts of ambition rather than hubris.
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Nov 1, 2011An utter wreck that curiously, miraculously, might have been great.
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Nov 1, 2011Audacious 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.
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Nov 1, 2011Things can get ponderous once Metallica start impatiently stomping, but often they turn Reed's pretensions into something muscular.
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Nov 1, 2011Lulu is a joyless mess, a grim, humorless record with no notion of when to say "when."
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Oct 31, 2011LuLu is a work that invites derision, an album that wallows in a tarpit of ugliness.
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Oct 31, 2011The whole thing comes off as either an expensive major label joke or nigh-impenetrable high art concept. Maybe both.
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Oct 31, 2011Ultimately, Lulu is a brave experiment for both Reed and Metallica, but it's one that falters as often as it succeeds.
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Oct 31, 2011Much advance word of Lou Reed and Metallica's excursion has been one of bewilderment and dismissal. It may well be, though, that in the fullness of time this is an album that is given the praise it deserves.
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Oct 31, 2011You're unlikely to play this record at your next soirée but the breadth and ambition is to be applauded.
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Oct 31, 2011At no point does Lou Reed sound like he is singing with Metallica, and the same is true the other way around.
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Oct 31, 2011It's not a successful union: the songs are too close to aimless, unfinished jams, Reed sounds as if he's trying too hard to be controversial and at 95 minutes it's far too long.
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Oct 28, 2011The bulk of Lulu sounds like your dad's drunk friend reciting his self-penned erotica over a melting ReLoad cassette.
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Oct 28, 2011Lulu is essentially a piece of shock art that's littered with vulgarity both lyrical and musical.
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Oct 28, 2011It's not hard to see why both parties agreed to the alliance--Metallica gain artistic cachet, Reed gains an audience--but it is not an alliance that welcomes listeners with open arms.
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Oct 27, 2011Reed's words dictate the musical structure. Often, Metallica simply fall in behind them in a free-form drone. Like much of Reed's late-period work, this is abstract and literary but even by his standards, Lulu is gruelling.
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Oct 27, 2011There's an insurmountable disjunction between the sound of Metallica doing their nut in the background and Reed's papery old voice rambling away upfront.
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Oct 26, 2011Any message contained within Lulu is lost in the whirl of discordant guitar work, Reed's mutterings and the complete sense of abject disappointment that surrounds the entire album.
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Oct 26, 2011One must reconcile with the absurd fact that Lulu exists before realizing how genuinely brilliant it is--when it's working.
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Oct 26, 2011Not 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.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 36 out of 233
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Mixed: 24 out of 233
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Negative: 173 out of 233
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Nov 1, 2011
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Nov 1, 2011
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Nov 1, 2011