METALLICA and LOU REED – Lulu (Part 4)

Hide yo koalas. It’s a battle between Metal Machine Music and a bloviating glittery piñata of grotesquery with a Tabasco enema.

Hidden track from Lulu

From: Brandon Hall
To: Jenn Lao

Well, um, yeah. That’s my official response. You can’t go quoting the first couple pages of “Notes on Camp” then misquote what she says on page 10.

Also, this sentence: “I desperately want to end my review of Lulu here, but I know that if I did, it would only spawn a longer response from Brandon, introduce more questions, and provoke him to use the word ‘Camp’ another 50 times”–that sentence didn’t really work out for you, did it? I’d be curious, but I think we may have surpassed 50 on the “camp” counter, which, as far as I’m concerned is a success.

Also, Kool-Aid. I beseech you, as well. And I would love to talk about how ridiculous James Hetfield sounds on this album. The “I am the table!” refrain from “The View” that you quoted in your valediction is just absurdly silly. Also, their quotes about the album that you so wonderfully brought to my attention: fucking priceless. But really, I’m excited to talk about anything except the actual album, Lulu, which is tedious and over serious and just…bad.

Zach chimed in, via comment, asking how Lulu compares to Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music, which was nice of him to do because I had been pondering the same thing.

Metal Machine Music is literally unlistenable. Like nails on a chalkboard unlistenable. Lulu is not that. I mean you can put it on and, while it’ll make you want to gag and feel depressed about music and the artists that purport to make it, it doesn’t…well, I mean, it’s really fucking bad…it’s awful…okay, but they’re totally not the same. Metal Machine Music is actually torture. It’s used in Guantanamo and hidden prisons in Qatar and (I’m making this up, but no one would bat an eye if it turned out to be true.) It’s a test of endurance not unlike Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans. Lulu is a complete failure, top to bottom. It’s embarrassing to listen to. It lacks tact and grace and intelligence. It’s a bludgeoning device used to rape koalas.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that you shouldn’t listen to either but Metal Machine Music is at least interesting enough theoretically and in its execution to retain some of its artistic integrity. Lulu has absolutely no integrity of any kind.

Let me wrap it up by saying this: after a week of debating it, I think Lulu actually is Camp. Unwittingly so, and therefore the best kind. This grandiose, bloviating, glittery piñata of grotesquery seems to have been made purely for the artifice of style. It has no artistic merit beyond “Look at us. Lou Reed and Metallica. No one can tell us what to do. Anything we do will be awesome. Take this for example!” And then they give us a Tabasco enema. They were dead serious, as usual, but what they made was a really unfunny joke.

“All I do is fall over,”
Brandon

From: Jenn Lao
To: Brandon Hall

OK, so i think the review is over.

Just as a side note, you say that Metal Machine Music is unlistenable, yet it “is at least interesting enough theoretically and in its execution as to retain some of its artistic integrity.” How the flip can you say an album has artistic integrity but it’s unlistenable? That doesn’t make sense. That’s like saying, oh wait, i forget that i’m horrible at analogies. I don’t care if they’re different levels of bad, flush both down the toilet.

I still think Lou Reed’s to blame for Lulu ultimately, coupled with Metallica’s holier than fucking thou attitude, this makes me want to roll around on a pile of glass shards.

jenn

p.s. The word “Camp” was used 62 times specifically in our dialectic; you came in at 47.  Go fig.

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