Lulu is the most improbable and polarizing collaboration in rock history: Lou Reed and Metallica joined forces to create a double album based on Frank Wedekind's theatrical works about the tragic figure of Lulu. The project was born from a performance at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2009 and developed over two years of joint work that generated one of the most divisive works in both discographies.
The result is deliberately uncomfortable: Reed's spoken and nearly monotonal voice over Metallica's apocalyptic metal creates frictions that many listeners found unbearable. 'Junior Dad', the nearly twenty-minute closing track, is a meditation on old age and death that is genuinely overwhelming in its desolation.
Lulu was savaged by critics and audiences at the time of its release, but with Reed's death in 2013 it has gained a more generous reevaluation. Seen as the final testament of an artist who always preferred risk to comfort, Lulu emerges as a gesture of radical integrity: doing exactly what one wants to do, regardless of consequences.