Browse: Home / Year of the Month: “The Greatest Disappointment” – A Reappraisal of LULU

Menu

Skip to content
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login

The-SoluteLogo

A Film Site By Lovers of Film

Menu

Skip to content
  • Features
  • Reviews
  • Long Reviews
  • News
  • Articles and Opinions
  • Other Media
  • The Friday Article Roundup: The Truth is In Here
  • Lunch Links: Schwarzfahrer
  • Websites on the Internet: THE SOLUTE
  • New on DVD and Blu-Ray
  • Movie Gifts Holidays 2024

Year of the Month: “The Greatest Disappointment” – A Reappraisal of LULU

Posted By John Bruni on April 25, 2023 in Features, Long Reviews, Other Media | Leave a response

The last song, “Junior Dad,” on Lulu (2011) offers compelling evidence that the collaboration between Lou Reed and Metallica actually worked. Their communal guitar drone rolls the sky as Lou purges his soul: “The greatest disappointment” is growing older and weaker, he says, for what awaits? At a Zen-like 19 minutes and 28 seconds the song feels like it can’t go on – it will go on. An impressive candidate for Lou’s highlight reel, without question.

Except that the entire rest of the album, about an hour and 7 minutes, does not address disappointment, but abjection: modeled on the “Lulu plays” of Frank Wedekind that bracingly depict the life of a stripper turned prostitute, giving Lou license to spew disturbing sexual imagery all over the lyrics. And which then seems, almost intentionally so, to crank up the musical disparities between Lou’s love of doo wop and urban blues and Metallica’s devotion to British speed metal.

With regards to making the avant-garde art scene, in the 1960s, the Velvet Underground, the band led by Lou, were pioneers. The members of Metallica arrived late to the party, no doubt an entrance eased by dint of their massive popularity.

An additional problem, albeit a personal one, is that Metallica tends to come across as unintentionally funny. Lou, although well-versed in every aspect of gutter humor, is very aware that this material is not conducive to comedy, at all. From Lou’s perspective, the humorlessness drives home the point that art should never be required to grant enjoyment in the experience of it.

For anyone, then, who knows anything about the disparate worlds of Lou and Metallica, and still holds onto hope that their collaboration on the “Lulu” songs proper will sound somehow harmonious, will have this hope dashed in less than a minute into the opener, “Brandenburg Gate.” The full-metal howl of James Hetfield of Metallica enters at the 56-second mark, with all of the grace of an incel at an orgy. Not only is Lou’s voice, frail from age and hard living, overwhelmed; any links between the two worlds are shattered.

The resulting musical dysfunction, as Jason P. Woodbury has observed, fueled the relentlessly negative reviews. On this matter, the reviewers had an indisputable point: you might as well attempt to find similarities between Lou and Metallica based on their mutual affinity for all-black outfits. Of course, no one ever wore all black cooler than Lou and the VU.

Having 8 more “Lulu” songs, all averaging 8 minutes, to get through, establishes the album as a musical endurance test of the highest order. What initially looks like a possibility for engagement, “Iced Honey” drives its ear-grabbing, dissonant riff into the ground, with Hetfield’s backing vocals again speeding the way. You can only imagine how the relatively less-tuneful songs fare.

Keep in mind, however, that over three decades ago, Lou had already gone much further out on the sonic brink than where he was with the VU. In 1975, he recorded layers of feedback, distortion, and whatever else he could wrench out of his electric guitar, electronically processing this noisescape into Metal Machine Music, which lasted over an hour. Not coincidentally, the reaction was similar to that of Lulu.

Maybe Lou thought, near the end of his life (he died in 2013), the time was right for “Metal” Machine Music: Part II. According to Woodbury, the members of Metallica didn’t know exactly what the deal was, having thought they’d been enlisted to record more conventionally-sounding songs, only to have Lou abruptly change course at the last minute before they went into the studio.

If Lulu is regarded as a provocative conceptual artwork, its grinding repetition becomes a feature, not a bug. Leading up to the final release of “Junior Dad,” “Frustration” (an apt title, surely) and “Dragon” have the same underlying guitar figure, with the acoustic guitar scraping of “Little Dog” serving as an interlude.

For Metallica albums, it was customary to tack on an acoustic power ballad, or two, to broaden their appeal. Lou, conversely, isn’t about to permit the formulaic addition of lighter/brighter instrumental textures to provide a rather simplistic contrast with the darkness of the life he’s describing. In Lou’s mind, making the acoustic guitars in “Little Dog” sound like rusty knife blades is essential for its animalistic theater of cruelty:

Tell me what it is you want

You sniff your shit in the wind

Follow me around

Pathetic little dog

Besides the obvious suggestion that Lou doesn’t intend to go gently into that good night, we might ask how Lulu helps us, or not help us, in determining his legacy. If Lou’s career vacillates between aggression and then belated reconciliation, maybe “Junior Dad” fits the album better than previously assumed. Of course, Lou always had a mind for leaving – the VU song, “Heroin,” stated such an intention from the start. Even then, as to where he’d end up, he said:

And I guess I just don’t know

Oh, and I guess I just don’t know

To sum up Lulu, Lou knows that now better than he ever did before.

 

Posted in Features, Long Reviews, Other Media | Tagged 2011, Lou Reed, Lulu, Metallica, Velvet Underground

About the Author

John Bruni

John Bruni teaches at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. His book, Scientific Americans: The Making of Popular Science and Evolution in Early-20th-Century U.S. Literature and Culture, was published by University of Wales Press in 2014. His second book, Astonishment and Recognition: Observing Systems in the Films of John Cassavetes, is under review at Fordham University Press.

Related Posts

Taco Break: Art That Makes You Wanna Make Art→

Never quite got into these Detroit style pizzas.Taco Inventory: Great Album Tracks (by Miller)→

Year of the Month: Haley Ioppini on 2NE1→

Year of the Month: James Williams on THE TREE OF LIFE→

  • Comments
  • Popular
  • Most Recent
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleWonderful piece, Sam. It's made…
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleFellow heretic here. I've never…
  • n***********@gmail.com'
    Ruck Cohlchez on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEI wouldn't have called it…
  • j***********@gmail.com'
    Son of Griff on LIFE ITSELFGlad to hear back from…
  • n*********@gmail.com'
    Jake Gittes on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEThis is the single most…
  • “The End” of SAVAGES

    38388 views / Posted November 10, 2014
  • The Untalented Mr. Ripley: The Craft of Standup Comedy and the Non-Comedy of TOM MYERS

    30732 views / Posted June 26, 2018
  • What the fuck did I just watch? SPHERE

    30344 views / Posted March 19, 2015
  • Gordon with Mr. Looper

    Attention Must Be Paid: Will Lee

    27651 views / Posted January 7, 2023
  • Scenic Routes: SHOWGIRLS (1995)

    23347 views / Posted November 20, 2014
  • The truth is FAR out there.

    The Friday Article Roundup: The Truth is In Here

    December 6, 2024 / The Ploughman
  • This is a way lower res image than I will be allowed to get away with at the new site.

    Lunch Links: Schwarzfahrer

    December 5, 2024 / The Ploughman
  • Websites on the Internet: THE SOLUTE

    December 4, 2024 / ZoeZ
  • New on DVD and Blu-Ray

    December 3, 2024 / Greta Taylor
  • Movie Gifts Holidays 2024

    December 2, 2024 / The Ploughman

Last Tweets

    ©2014 - 2016 The-Solute | Hosted, Developed and Maintained by Bellingham WP LogoBellinghamWP.com.

    Menu

    • Home
    • Who We Are
    • About
    • Privacy
    • Contact Us
    • Login
    Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!