[1] Lou Reed. Photo by Reuters. German playwright Frank Wedekind had a theory about the connection between life on the wild side and happiness: "Search fearlessly for every sin, for out of sin comes joy," he wrote. Wedekind (1864-1918) abided by this rule, mostly through a cocktail of lust and gluttony.
He's best known for two works, Earth Spirit and Pandora's Box, which came to be known as the "Lulu" plays, and it's this that Lou Reed has adapted in a collaboration with rock band Metallica using equal parts wrath and sloth. Its 10 songs run to nearly 95 minutes, Metallica driving riffs deliberately and repetitively, and Reed's monotonous voice rambling into atonal realms that at their most obnoxious are quite disturbing. Detractors are lining up to tear Lulu down.
In the past month, music writers of all varieties have been joyously seeking to identify all the sins within Reed and Metallica's Lulu.
A low-hanging fruit if there ever was one, Lulu has been called "the worst record ever made" by respected British music blog the Quietus - it has also been called misogynist and racist.
Reed recruited Metallica to tackle the project, one he'd originally envisioned as a collaboration with New York avant-garde playwright Robert Wilson. Critics and commenters whose musical attention spans have been scattered by shuffle clearly can't fathom spending days with a difficult and, yes, at times nearly unlistenable 95-minute release.
But the effort is worth it if you're up for deep thinking, can endure a fair share of sonic pain, like a good Metallica riff or three, and are in the mood for the odd incredulous guffaw.
And if nothing else, this is the most we've talked about Lou Reed in 20 years.
- Randall Roberts
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