Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The lights are all blinking red.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

This is dead girl, live boy, a goat, two wetsuits and a dildo territory.  oh, and pink furry handcuffs.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

They don’t have outfits that big. nor codpieces that small.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

You are here: Home / Music / You’re a naughty one, saucy Jack

You’re a naughty one, saucy Jack

by | 95 Comments

This post is in: 

Simple lines intertwining…life imitates art:

It’s already been called the worst album of all time, this unholy union of Lou Reed and Metallica, the multi-headed hydra of unpleasantness known colloquially, though not fondly, as Loutallica.

They’ve united to present an 85-minute misery delivery system called “Lulu,” loosely based on a series of German expressionist plays that chronicled the adventures of a prostitute-turned-slave murdered by Jack the Ripper.

Two words.

Reader Interactions

95Comments

  3. 3.

    cleek

    A/V Club has a nice line in their review:

    For the most part, Lulu is barely listenable. Leading up to “Junior Dad” are nine tracks — two of them topping 11 minutes — that feature Reed bleating like a dementia-stricken uncle over his nephews’ numbskull garage band.

  5. 5.

    handy

    And this is from somebody who can even tolerate the mid-80’s Lou incarnation (anyone else dig “My Red Joystick?”)

  6. 6.

    joeyess

    Two Words.

    Spinal Tap.

    I can’t wait until Tbogg gets his demonic-conservative-ridicule-machine hands on this.

  12. 12.

    Rita R.

    Spinal Tap on point again, even 30 years ahead of time.

    Maybe this is all an elaborate, ST-themed parody by Metallica/Reed a la Joaquin Phoenix’s faux filmed foray into rap.

  13. 13.

    Legalize

    I admit to rooting for this thing to work out …. Until my bother showed me a YouTube clip of the two of them drowning “Sweet Jane” in a mop bucket. At which point I started rooting for injuries.

  15. 15.

    HumboldtBlue

    Considering Metallica sucks ass and Lou Reed is as washed up as a Bachmann volunteer in New Hampshire, the only question left is — will Nickleback be joining them for the premiere?

  16. 16.

    kindness

    Rolling Stone had a really good article on the band/combination and said the music was good. I was looking forward to hearing it.

    I would say it sucks to be such haters, but look where I am.

  17. 17.

    Martin

    this unholy union of Lou Reed and Metallica, the multi-headed hydra of unpleasantness known colloquially, though not fondly, as Loutallica.

    So, WaPo thinks this random hodgepodge of content sucks, but thinks that any Republican random hodgepodge of tax and spending policy that is guaranteed to bankrupt the country is bold and courageous?

    Why should anyone give WaPo any credibility on any issue when they are so thoroughly full of shit at least half the time? (and which half, we can never tell)

  20. 20.

    joeyess

    Oh. My. Word.

    I listened to about 30 seconds of each track and all I could think of was that my Metallica hired my dad to sing for them.

    BTW, Dad’s been deceased for a year now.

    Yep. It’s that bad.

  23. 23.

    kindness

    In all honesty though I have come to like Metallica over the years. Symphony & Metallica is great (the one they did with the San Francisco Symphony at The Berkeley Community Theater) and I generally like Lou, but I understand not everyone does.

  24. 24.

    Suffern ACE

    I actually coulda’ sworn that I read an obituary for Reed a few years ago, so this is a bit of a shock to me.

  30. 30.

    Comrade Mary

    Chiming in on MMM. If you have never read Lester Bangs’ review, you should read it now.

    It has been suggested that in my annual regress report to the stockholders, published here last month, I neglected in all five thousand words to ever once mention why Metal Machine Music is a good album. So here, especially in light of Coney Island Baby, are the reasons:
    __
    If you ever thought feedback was the best thing that ever happened to the guitar, well, Lou just got rid of the guitars.
    __
    I realize that any idiot with the equipment could have made this album, including me, you or Lou. That’s one of the main reasons I like it so much. As with the Godz and Tangerine Dream, not only does it bring you closer to the artist, but someday, god willing, I may get to do my own Metal Machine Music. It’s all folk music, anyway.
    __
    When you wake up in the morning with the worst hangover of your life, Metal Machine Music is the best medicine. Because when you first arise you’re probably so fucked (i.e., still drunk) that is doesn’t even really hurt yet (not like it’s going to), so you should put this album on immediately, not only to clear all the crap out of your head, but to prepare you for what’s in store the rest of the day.
    __
    Speaking of clearing out crap, I once had this friend who would say, “I take acid at least every two months & JUST BLOW ALL THE BAD SHIT OUTA MY BRAIN!” So I say the same thing about MMM. Except I take it about once a day, like vitamins. …

    Eno has an app or two. Very relaxing. But we meed the MMM app for the iPhone as well. Just imagine launching it in a crowded subway car.

    (Yes, that last link goes to an excerpt on YouTube. I warn you because I love you.)

  31. 31.

    joeyess

    @DougJ: What? Did you want me to state the obvious?

    Okay.

    Shit. Sandwich.

    I beg your pardon, but I’ve watched that movie at least 100 times. I know the reference was alluding to shit sandwich regarding Tap’s last record “shark sandwich”. But listening to the streaming mp3’s it is painfully obvious that this is the proverbial example of “life imitates art”.

  32. 32.

    kindness

    @DougJ: And I was being tongue in cheek there. The BJ community can get surly but you gots to have thick skin to play here.

    When Metallica was new, I had already been through my metal phase. Same with AC/DC, friends of mine loved them, I could have cared less. But over time I’ve come to see some beauty & joy in it. And I loved grunge when it came through….What can I say?

  35. 35.

    Catsy

    Late to the party, won’t repeat all the obligatory Spinal Tap references. But HOLY FUCK, that is some weapons-grade fertilizer. I hopped over to Youtube and found a handful of song samples, and they are not kidding–this is outright unlistenable even if you like Metallica.

    There are a few tracks I might put on as background music if they were instrumentals, but the “vocals” from Reed and Hetfield are just unendurable. I used to write electronic music way back when in the Demoscene, and this sounds like an old S3M or IT music file with seamless loops of guitar riff samples and bad homemade vocal WAVs overlaid on top. Except with higher production values.

  38. 38.

    celtidragonchick

    @joeyess:

    I just tried to listen to the track “pumping blood” and I was ready to slit my own wrists after 30 seconds.

    Jesus.

  40. 40.

    Marc

    @HumboldtBlue:

    I think you’re confusing different members of the Velvet Underground. Maureen (Moe Tucker) is a Tea Party loon in Georgia; I’ve never seen any evidence that Lou Reed is. He’s married to Laurie Anderson and I don’t think New Hampshire has anything to do with it.

  41. 41.

    The Moar You Know

    One “Amazon Verified Purchase” review.

    That person liked it.

    I’m going to hold off jumping into this pile-on.

  43. 43.

    Bruce S

    There are some albums/films/books that one is thankful were made because without them we wouldn’t have had the pleasure of reading the consummately entertaining bad reviews. (Ebert has done some of the best. Garrison Keillor’s New York Times book review of Bernard Henri-Levi’s American travelogue was in the top ranks as well.)

  44. 44.

    burnspbesq

    The good thing about living in our current electronic environment is that no one will buy this based solely on the reputations of the musicians involved and be bitterly disappointed. That was the real problem with “Metal Machine Music.” People were expecting “Transformer Part Deux.”

    And all you Lou Reed haters can just suck on this.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4VuHHqIBqI&feature=fvst

  46. 46.

    Catsy

    AUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH.

    The View
    Pumping Blood

    The Internets can be cruel, but this steaming three-coiler deserves every bit of the invective directed at it. It’s really impossible to appreciate just how bad these songs are without hearing them.

    At least some Spinal Tap songs are fun to listen to!

  47. 47.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    It’s actually better than the new Dennis Miller/David Mamet album.

    Now, I don’t want to rant here, ladies and gentlemen, but Hollywood is so liberal that even when they drive on the right it’s on the left.

    On the left.

    That’s right.

    You say, they drive on the left.

    On the left, that’s what I’m saying.

    You mean…

    Yes.

    On the left, is what you…

    I mean that, yes, the left.

  53. 53.

    cmorenc

    One of the truly great things about having Satellite radio and iTunes and Pandora for my musical entertainment is…

    I NEVER have to be subjected to the dilemma of being subjected to crap like this being frequently played on all the rock radio stations on the FM dial, and having to constantly twiddle back and forth to avoid it. Fortunately, at the moment I also don’t have any friends with the sort of terrible music taste that I have to put up with listening to crap like that as the price of riding with them in their car, or visiting their house.

  54. 54.

    Marc

    Lou did Metal Machine Music, for heavens sake. I’m just curious if it is worse than that, because by all accounts that was the worst album ever released by a major artist. see

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_Machine_Music

    Rolling Stone called it “the tubular groaning of a galactic refrigerator” and as displeasing to experience as “a night in a bus terminal.”

    Another review called it “”a two-disc set consisting of nothing more than ear-wrecking electronic sludge, guaranteed to clear any room of humans in record time.”

    Or “four sides of unlistenable oscillator noise”

    Or “an interminable collection of mechanical bleeps and burps”

    He has a high bar to clear to make it his worst album, let alone the worst by anyone at any time. (Shatner is calling…)

  58. 58.

    The Moar You Know

    @joeyess:
    @Catsy:

    Eh. Maybe it’s from a twenty-year career as a musician, but I’ve heard way worse. Based on what I’ve heard, I’d give it three stars and get on with my life.

  63. 63.

    trollhattan

    @handy:

    Yup, this. (I’m infamous amongst a select few for once having spun several minutes of each MMM side on the radio. Not the whole thing because I valued my life too much.)

  64. 64.

    Uriel

    @HumboldtBlue:

    You should be ashamed you were even able to conceive of something like that, let alone committing it to the written word.

    Your mind must be a truly terrible place.

  65. 65.

    CaptainFwiffo

    I jumped into the middle of a random track on Youtube and I actually couldn’t last 10 seconds. I can’t recommend anyone subject themselves to this. At all. Don’t even take a taste. It’s something you just can’t take back.

    You couldn’t do something this bad on purpose. I can hardly describe it, but I’ll try. Imagine letting a three-year-old go to town with a pot and a wooden spoon, then have his emo teenage older brother read his very worst angsty poetry. Now add in the ten worst genocides in human history.

    The Youtube comments capture it best:

    This sure was hard to masturbate too.

    Wisdom.

  66. 66.

    PanAmerican

    Klosterman takes a sledge to it:

    Yet there’s still something vital about Lulu that needs to be remembered, even as you rip it off MediaFire and immediately forget the name of every single track: This was the dream…..As a rule, we’re always supposed to applaud the collapse of the record industry. We are supposed to feel good about the democratization of music and the limitless palette upon which artists can now operate. But that collapse is why Lulu exists.

  67. 67.

    Lev

    I like quite a bit of Lou Reed, but little of his music since parting ways with Robert Quine has interested me, aside from the song New Sensations and a few things off New York.

  72. 72.

    Roy G.

    “Do me a favor. Just kick my ass, okay? Kick this ass for a man, that’s all. Kick my ass. Enjoy. Come on. I’m not asking, I’m telling with this. Kick my ass.”
    .

  73. 73.

    Joel

    That Klosterman article linked above taught me that there’s a supergroup called “SuperHeavy”. Mick Jagger is involved. I guess he didn’t learn from his ill-fated collaboration with Peter Tosh.

  74. 74.

    EconWatcher

    As a college student, I listened to “New York” more than any other album, over and over again. I was also extremely unsuccessful in the dating scene. I don’t know if these two facts are related.

  75. 75.

    lacp

    I’m actually curious enough to give this puppy a listen – I like Lou Reed (Metallica not so much) and I saw a terrific production of Alban Berg’s Lulu many years ago.

  76. 76.

    Joel

    @PanAmerican: I’d like to add, that as much as i liked Klosterman’s article, I disagree with his thesis.

    Old bands made crappy albums throughout history. The radio-controlled days did not preclude old guys from making crappy music. I mean, when was the last good U2 album? The press barrage insisting that “How to dismantle an atomic bomb” was a great album failed to cover the fact that it was actually a crappy album. The clip from Trainspotting that I cited was filmed in 1995, and the book was written in 1993.

  77. 77.

    forked tongue

    I listened to it. I don’t like metal, and the music Metallica makes isn’t to my taste at all. The songs were a mess. The lyrics made me want to puke and Lou’s voice is horrible. I kinda liked it.

  79. 79.

    RossInDetroit

    The last Lou Reed album I listened to very much was Magic and Loss. I think it’s really great.
    I do like some terrible music. …Trail of Dead is awful but fun. The Black Angels sound like a herd of brontosaurus in an artillery barrage but in a good way.
    But the few samples of the Loutallica monstrosity that I listened to are too rough even for my tough skin. How could they even stand to MAKE that mess?

  81. 81.

    Amir Khalid

    @RossInDetroit: Liked Magic and Loss too. it’s the only Lou Reed album I’ve ever heard. (You can blame the local distribution arms of the major labels. if it doesn’t do well in the US, you damn well won’t see it out here.)

  86. 86.

    The prophet Nostradumbass

    I haven’t listend to this thing, at all, but some of the comments reminded me of a passage in a Roger Ebert review of a Roman Polanski movie:

    There’s probably a level of competence beneath which bad directors cannot fall. No matter how dreary their imaginations, how stupid their material, how inept their actors, how illiterate their scripts, they’ve got to come up with something that can at least be advertised as a motion picture, released and forgotten.
    __
    But a talented director is another matter. If he’s made several good films, chances are that sooner or later someone will give him the money to make a supremely bad one.

  88. 88.

    The prophet Nostradumbass

    @JGabriel: Years ago, I worked in a book store where Laurie Anderson did a book signing. Reed came along, and laid on his back on the floor behind the desk where Anderson did the signing.

Comments are closed.