Lou Reed and Metallica recorded an album together

[Skummy]

One final note, the "monster" length of final track Junior Dad is a cheat. Song ends about ten minutes in with mostly ambient guitar afterwards.

I haven't listened to the track, so I'm not sure what you mean by "ambient guitar", but Lou Reed has been playing around with feedback, dissonance and drone music for his entire career, so that sounds to me like it would be fairly consistent with his usual work, rather than a "cheat".

[GA!]

One final note, the "monster" length of final track Junior Dad is a cheat. Song ends about ten minutes in with mostly ambient guitar afterwards.

I haven't listened to the track, so I'm not sure what you mean by "ambient guitar", but Lou Reed has been playing around with feedback, dissonance and drone music for his entire career, so that sounds to me like it would be fairly consistent with his usual work, rather than a "cheat".

Like I said, my knowledge of Lou Reed's previous work is non-existent apart from hearing about the infamy of Metal Machine Music. If the final ten minutes (which is feedback etc. like you said) is in-line with what else he's done then that's fair enough and I actually prefer it to the rest of the album. My point is to have no expectation of finding out how the hell can they stretch a song to twenty minutes. I wouldn't even say the first and second half of the song connect together.

Then again, I also thought The Beatles "cheated" by fading out before Golden Slumbers in the Abbey Road Medley.

Talking bollocks is my gimmick.

[The Sandman]

Okay, this is definitely much better than i expected it to be.

Musically this is really good and different, i like that. I have no problem with the fact that this isn't usual Metallica, didn't really expect it to be. There seems to be some repeating in several songs but didn't bother me too much. There's many great guitar parts and i love the acoustics on few songs. I'm still not the biggest Lou Reed fan, but he doesn't annoy me as much as i thought he would and is actually pretty good in some parts, like in Junior Dad for example. So far Brandenburg Gate, Iced Honey, Cheat On Me, and Junior Dad sound good.

After "The View" i was afraid that this is going to be a total disaster, but there's few really interesting ones. I pre-ordered the album and will wait till i get it to listen the whole thing. It's far from awesome, but not that terrible that internet opinions make it sound. I just wish that Hetfield would've got to sing more on this.

Most of Metallica's fans are going to shit on this so bad.

Edited October 20, 2011 by The Sandman

[Evis]

Here's what I think of the songs:

Brandenburg Gate: Meh. Not one of my favorite songs.

The View: Everyone seems to hate this, except for me. I like it

Pumping Blood: This is one of my favorite metallica songs ever. Go ahead, flame me, I love this song

Mistress Dread: Good song

Cheat On Me: Pretty epic song

Frustration: Another amazing song

Little Dog: Pretty damn awesome

Dragon: Another amazing song

Junior Dad: Pretty good ending song

Overall: 8.5/10

Edited October 20, 2011 by Evis

[The Sandman]

The more i listen to it, the better Junior Dad is. What a great song, quite possibly the best one on this.

[Evis]

The more i listen to it, the better Junior Dad is. What a great song, quite possibly the best one on this.

The first 7 minutes are great, but it drags on IMO. This is coming from someone who LOVES long epic songs.

[The Sandman]

Yeah, that's true. I've had the melody stuck in my head for a while now, it repeats that basically through the whole singing part but i think it's really cool. If they had cut the instrumental part off and ended it at the 10 minute mark, this whole thing would've fit on one CD. It's still a brilliant song. I also love the riff at Dragon that kicks in about 2:47, also Pumping Blood from 6:00 is pretty crazy. The more i listen to this, the better it seems to get. I need to sit down and just do nothing but listen through this whole thing, probably going to wait till the cd to do that.

Edited October 21, 2011 by The Sandman

[Evis]

I've listened to Frustration like, 10 times now, it's a great song. The only thing I didn't like was Brandenburg Gate. I've only listened to it once, but I thought it was pretty rubish. Every other song has some good thing about it though.

[Skummy]

Listened to about half of this so far and, Jesus Christ, is there a sound in music anywhere more consistently intrusive and irritating than Lars Ulrich's drumming? I think if it wasn't for him, I'd probably love this album, but in places he renders it practically unlistenable. Also, Hetfield's vocals - especially on the first track - sound like shit. I know Lou Reed can't sing, but at least he sounds like Lou Reed. Hetfield sounds like a Saturday Night Live sketch about James Hetfield.

[Matt]

Listened to about half of this so far and, Jesus Christ, is there a sound in music anywhere more consistently intrusive and irritating than Lars Ulrich's drumming?

Jedward.

[The Sandman]

Now that i've heard the whole thing, it's not really a huge disappointment, but not really great either. I'm in a mood to just write something so what i think about the songs...

First Brandenburg Gate, i'm maybe in minority but i've liked that one from the first clip they put out. I really like the riff in the beginning that kicks in just before Hetfield starts screaming "Small Town Girl."

The View is somewhere between okay and good song. Hetfield's parts are good here.

I want to like Pumping Blood as it's musically pretty good, but Lou Reed kind of ruins this one for me. Ulrich's drumming is different from the usual snare rape in the middle in the part with only him and Lou Reed, his drumming is actually my favourite thing about it.

Mistress Dread is just plain bad.

Iced Honey is another one i like. Lou Reed is pretty good here, pretty simple and good rock song. I actually like the "See the ice will melt for you/Iced Honey duel in the end with Reed/Hetfield.

Then three songs that are bad Cheat On Me is just way too long, the slow opening though is kind of cool. I just don't get Frustration, i like that one riff that comes around 7:15. I like the acoustic on Little Dog, but otherwise i found it boring. In lots of songs there are some stuff that works great, but so much stuff that just doesn't.

Dragon is a good one, i love the riff that starts around 2:45 and gets repeated about 137 times before the end, still this song is just great. I like how it feels that it's just going faster and faster towards the end. Best one with Brandenburg Gate and...

Junior Dad. Best one to come from this project. I love the melodies and pretty much everything, best song Lou Reed wise as well.

Edited November 2, 2011 by The Sandman

[The Sandman]

Making a double-post two days later..

Iced Honey - The Video

We could not be more excited to announce that Darren Aronofsky, best known for the Oscar-nominated films Black Swan and The Wrestler, will direct a performance music video for “Iced Honey.” Lou and the band will be shooting this week in the Bay Area. You can look for the finished video here later this month.

Both huge fans of Darren’s work, Lou commented “I have loved Darren Aronofsky since he did Pi. I hope I can be his next Black Swan.” Lars added “As if making a record with Lou Reed is not enough... now I get to make a video with Darren Aronofsky, who has been among my very favorite filmmakers since his first movie, Pi. This is turning into a monumental chapter in the on-going saga entitled ‘Lars Ulrich...living the dream!!!’”

We’ll be sure to post the video here for your viewing pleasure as soon as it is ready!

Pretty interesting as me being a huge fan of Aronofsky's work. The video itself might be cool. Also Iced Honey is one of the better songs of the album.

Oh and also Lou Reed's "I hope i can be his next black swan." just burned a very disturbing image to my mind.

Edited November 4, 2011 by The Sandman

[GA!]

Oh and also Lou Reed's "I hope i can be his next black swan." just burned a very disturbing image to my mind.

Me too.

[RPS]

I actually listened to the whole album. I really don't know what to think. Part of me thinks its a huge practical joke. Part of me thinks it sounds like two musical icons basically releasing whatever the fuck they want to do, devoid of any standards and expectations. Part of me thinks its the worst album I've ever heard. But than I also think it's the best album I've ever heard? It's entertaining to say the very least.

[Dingle]

Never have I been less inspired by music than when I just was listening to 'The View'. I echo Skummy's annoyance at Lars' drumming, and I thank my lucky stars that I didn't wind up being a Metallica fan. I'm sure it speaks to some people, but the steady-state world of Metal would bore the piss out of me. I'm not going to bother to listen to the whole album like my best mate usually tries to convince me to do "Oh that's only one song, the album actually creates a new direction for them." Metallica have less directions than that X Factor band (yeah bad pun, whatever), and whilst I actually enjoy a couple of the older stuff, it's been a very very long time since 'The Unforgiven II' (the last song I liked I think, cant be arsed wiki'ing dates) and everything after that has sounded terrible/by the numbers and I prefer my music to be new and exciting, not some geezers making fortunes by selling you the same shit over and over again.

[The Sandman]

They were playing last night on Jools Holland show. Doesn't sound too bad, i actually somewhat like both clips. Apparently they also played The View, but it won't be broadcasted before Friday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toP57rDQtPE&feature=player_embedded

[Quom]

Christ, just watched the videos, no, just no.

[Dingle]

Christ, just watched the videos, no, just no.

Makes me want to die.

[MDK]

That is some of the worst music I have ever heard, even worse than dubstep.

[thatshortguy]

This is the most indulgent album I may have ever heard. It's as if we -- as listeners -- are actually hearing ourselves getting flipped off by the people involved.

I like Metallica. I kinda like Lou Reed.

I like chocolate. I kinda like turkey...but don't go smashing them together without rhyme or reason.

"Lulu" is, quite frankly, an example in entities not compromising. This is old Lou Reed and Metallica, not Lou Reed and Metallica.