When Lulu, Metallica's collaborative album with Lou Reed, emerged on Halloween, 2011, the reviews that followed were appropriately nightmarish. UK music website The Quietus considered the work, a double album based on the Lulu plays (Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box) by German writer Frank Wedekind, "a candidate for one of the worst albums ever made", while Kerrang! slammed it as "a catastrophic failure on almost every level".
Classic Rock's Mick Wall, a long-time friend of the band, who penned their 2010 biography Enter Night, offered a more generous appraisal of the 10-song set, stating that while "traditionalist metal fans will be disappointed", the pairing of metal's biggest biggest band with the former Velvet Underground leader "makes for an absolutely shattering combination".
For their part, the members of Metallica regret nothing.
"Lulu wasn’t accepted as much as we accepted it," James Hetfield acknowledged in 2015, adding, "I’m really proud that we did it. It was fun, it was an adventure."
