A lot, apparently. Critical reaction has been almost uniformly negative. We called it "a somber, self-satisfied, misogynistic mess that is the aural equivalent of having a rock dropped on your head."
It turns out we were being nice. Below, we've rounded up some of the more entertaining critical reactions from around the Internet.
1. "It’s not really designed for people who like music. It sounds like what it is: an elderly misanthrope reciting paradoxical aphorisms over a collection of repetitive, adrenalized sludge licks."
Chuck Klosterman, Grantland.com
2. "Lou Reed is probably having a right good laugh about it all while Metallica now have a very deep hole to crawl out of….Not only is “Lulu” the worst thing any of the players have been involved in, it's quite possibly a candidate for one of the worst albums ever made."
3. "Now, imagine that someone left the tape running…and an old man wandered in off the street and started recording his own incoherent, cracked-voice ramblings and rantings over it. That, in a nutshell, is what you get on all 10 interminable tracks"
4. "[A] complete failure on every tangible and intangible level of its existence."
Jeremy D. Larson, Consequence Of Sound
5. "[I] listened to the whole thing in the car today and I am not exaggerating one bit when I say it's worse than Tune-Yards. It is literally the worst music I have ever heard in my life. I cannot envision, even if professional musicians were set out TRYING to make the worst album ever recorded, the most unpleasing music to the ear, that they could possibly conceive of something like this. Every single thing, every step of the way, unbelievabley [sic] God awful. Every single second."
Poster Marsupialized, on the Electricalaudio.com message boards
6. "[I]f “Lulu” had been made by five dudes who weren’t already famous, no one would give two [expletives] about it. A reader would send us a YouTube rip of one of the songs, and we’d publish it and laugh at it, and so would everyone in the comments section, and then we would all forget about it — at least until one of the band members sent us a furious e-mail, at which point we’d remember it for the amount of time it took to read that e-mail, and then we’d forget about it again."
7. "listening to the lou reed & metallica record. my jaw is on the ground. you guys!!! 'jaw is on the ground' as in: 'i can not believe this is a real thing/this is the worst thing i've ever heard'"
Bethany Cosentino from Best Coast, via Pitchfork
8. "Hitler's right about one thing: no one ever listened to 'Master of Puppets' and said, "Awesome, but no Lou Reed?"
Nerve.com, imagining Fake YouTube Hitler's reaction to the existence of Loutallica
9. "The marriage of Reed's thin, monotone voice to Metallica's thick, monotone riffs — and an average song length of nearly nine minutes (including a 19-minute punishment at the end) — produces a listening experience that is never anything more than a dismal, grueling chore."
Thomas Conner, Chicago Sun Times
10. "It’s maybe the best thing done by anyone, ever. It could create another planetary system. I’m not joking, and I’m not being egotistical."
