Metalcatto
I didn’t want to cover Metallica again so soon, but the people on Instagram have spoken, and apparently they want to put me through this ordeal. It’s easy to say that Lulu is the worst album our humble genre has offered to the sad world. Metallica and Lou Reed wanted to do something together. It was supposed to be different, audacious, fearless. What we got instead was fear deep in our hearts and generational trauma. So let’s start.
Lulu makes St. Anger sound like poetry. I understand the intent behind making something deep and conceptual, but Lulu is a great lesson in creative excess. You have that constant talking that adds very little to the music, combined with the endless battering you’re subjected to over and over again. My Latino friends reading this: it’s like Facundo Cabral, but with no talent or fun communism (fun? That’s impossible!). The album is as long as a black-and-white movie. Whoever tried to edit this mess was fired on the spot.
My real challenge here was simply finishing Lulu. I’ve started it many times, but only recently managed to reach the end. It’s just so crushingly boring and uncomfortable. How many times do I have to hear a grown man shouting “I am the table!” or beauties like “I could cut my legs and t!ts off,” “To be dry and spermless,” “I puke my guts out at your feet“, “Kotex Jutebox“, “A puny body and tiny dick,” “A little dog can make you sick”, or “Like a coloured man’s dick” (OMG!)? These are the lyrical treasures this album has to offer. Funny enough, that’s not even my biggest problem with Lulu. It commits another, far graver sin. The music is just farts, people.
Because we need to make room for Lou to talk and James to scream, the instruments are left with the miserable task of repeating the same ideas over and over again. Washed out. Uninteresting. SLOW. It’s like an atmospheric album with absolutely none of the atmosphere. Lulu feels completely bare-boned. There’s very little happening here. You just sit there, listening to some of the most embarrassing lyrics ever recorded while the weakest Metallica music imaginable plays in the background. You know things have gone terribly wrong when Lars has absolutely no problem playing every track.
I need more money to do this again! If St. Anger has somehow gained some fans (did you know IQ scores have been dropping in some places lately? Maybe that’s why), Lulu remains the ultimate journey into what true pretentiousness can create. A monster that goes beyond our darkest dreams. It would be easy to call Lulu trash, but there’s at least something biodegradable in trash. You know, something that can eventually return to the earth and contribute to the circle of life. That’s not the case here.
You can probably count on your hands the number of people who have actually listened to this whole thing from beginning to end. It’s not a club I ever wanted to join, but here I am. Thanks for nothing, you psychos.
This thing killed Lou!
