Metallica

Publicity

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Well, this is a nice New Year’s present. I just now discovered that my essay about Lou Reed’s and Metallica’s Lulu has attracted the attention of the guys themselves (or at least their publicity people), who put a link to it on the Press page for the album. Yikes!

Apparently the link’s been there since November 15. However, it seems to have been broken by my recent site move. It can now be found here.

While I haven’t actually been in contact with Lou or Metallica, I’m gratified and humbled at the possibility that they might have actually read my ramblings, and that they know that, after all, some of us don’t think the album sucks.

Thanks, guys.

 

Feedback on Lulu

music, review , , 1 Comment

Ever since I posted my little review of Lulu by Lou Reed and Metallica, I’ve gotten a fair amount of feedback. Most of it has been surprisingly positive; it appears that my review has made its way to people who appreciate what they were trying to do, even if the majority of Metallica fans don’t. I couldn’t be happier about this.

Most of the responses have been as comments on the story itself, but I’ve also gotten some good stuff privately via email. Many of these have been thoughtful and passionate; all have treated the material with respect and taken it seriously. With the permission of the authors, I’ve decided to post a few messages here.

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Lulu addendum

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Just a quick note, about my review of Lulu: I’m glad to see that my essay has gotten some attention, and in particular that it’s reached people who agree with me about the album. It officially comes out today, so now we get to see how it all hashes out. (I was gratified to see a fairly positive review in Rolling Stone; however, that was more than balanced by horrible reviews in the Atlantic, Pitchfork, and the A.V. Club.)

However, it also occurred to me that if I had devoted as much time and effort to my fiction writing as I did to this, I would have been published a long time ago.  :-)

Anyhoo. Back to the usual whining and blathering.

 

Review: Lulu by Lou Reed & Metallica

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Okay, so as promised, here is my review of Lulu, the new collaboration between the rock singer/songwriter Lou Reed and the heavy metal band Metallica. It’s ended up being much longer than I intended, but there’s a lot to talk about here; the origins of the project, how it fits into their bodies of work, and why Metallica’s fans have reacted as they have. Hopefully my thoughts are interesting and enlightening.

(tl;dr: I love it, and I know most people hate it, and they’re wrong.)

So, let’s go. Join me over the fold, won’t you?

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A little something different (updated!)

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I’ve been meaning for some time to add reviews to my output here. Books, music, movies, the usual stuff. I have a couple of things I want to write about, so it seems like as good a time as any to start. Hopefully they’ll be interesting and informative.

And for my first one, I’ve got a doozy. Just this evening, I’ve obtained a leaked advance copy of the Lou Reed/Metallica collaboration, Lulu (due out next week). I’m listening to it now, and I badly want to write about it. So I will.

Tomorrow. Watch for it.

(P.S. to the above-named artists: don’t sue me, guys. I promise I’ll be buying it.)

UPDATE: Okay, so tomorrow is here, and the review’s not ready. Apologies; I had to listen to it again, after all, and there were other tasks needing to be done. But it’s in progress. Give it another day or two.