Warthur Lou Reed has crafted a masterful, finely-produced concept album which is inspired by the German expressionism of the inter-war period and updates those ideas for the modern day, backed by a competent backing band of highly capable musicians who expertly bring his ideas to life. That album is called "Berlin", he put it out in 1973 and it's really quite excellent.

Lulu, on the other hand, wow. A lot of words have been written, spoken, and yelled about Lulu from the point of view of it being a Metallica album - and as far as Metallica albums go, it's pretty poor - but I want to spend a little time to speak about it from the perspective of a Lou Reed fan. As I outline above, the album occupies territory which Lou has already covered, and covered more than adequately over the course of his solo career. The fact that he is choosing to revisit it with Metallica only shows how short on ideas the guy is these days. (His other most recent endeavour? Trying to put across the idea that the Metal Machine Music album was a serious artistic statement and touring with a trio playing similar noise. Sorry Lou, the noise rock bandwagon already left you in the dust.)

I love him for the contributions he made to proto-punk and glam back in the day, but the fact is that he just can't cut it as a lyricist or a singer any more. Putting him front of Metallica only makes these problems even more blindingly obvious than they already are.

Andyman1125 To many Metallica seemed to be a dead horse the moment the band released their eighth studio album St. Anger in 2003. The amateur production, undeveloped and raunchy compositions, and overall rather, well, bad album seemed to signal the death of the once most popular metal band in the world. Band tensions were at an all-time high, and the band seemed to be on the verge of dissolution. Yet, the band returned in 2008 with the significantly better Death Magnetic. The album signaled the apparent return to their thrash metal riffs, and while the songs on the album were not as progressive or forward thinking as some on their earlier albums, the album was decisively not bad. When the band announced in 2011 that they were to be collaborating with legendary experimental artist Lou Reed, understandably many fans were rather frightened at the prospect. The two famous musicians, Lou Reed and Metallica as a whole, are very well known not only for their strong headed beliefs but also their general jerk-ish nature. While other similarities may have made it seem as the collaboration might have had some lick of potential, the interesting pairing was bound to have issues. Lou Reed, who is just about 70 years old, is certainly in no position to start making music with a famous metal band. Metallica, whose strong headedness and desire to not care about anyone else in the music business, was not exactly in the position to make music with this 70 year old musician. Nevertheless, LULU was made. The LULU project was an interesting concept to say the least. The album is a double concept album based off the drama of the same name by playwright Frank Wedekind. Reed was allowed to lead the vocal output as well as write all the lyrics. What emerged was the single "The View." The song was abrasive, to say the least. Reed's more "elderly" voice recites his amateurish "poetry" in a spoken word style over Metallica's thrash metal based riffs. The riffs weren't the most creative the band's ever produced, and Reed's choppy vocal work made the whole song entirely humorous. This laughable effort made me, as well as most critics and fans, very worried about the overall release.

The listener's trepidations were answered on Halloween 2011 with the official album release. The 80+ minute album was a true pain to endure through. Reed's vocal performance on "The View" is sadly one of the best on the album, with his vocal work on "Brandenburg Gate" and "Cheat on Me" being especially horrendous. I must say if I begin to laugh hysterically at any body of music that is meant to be released entirely seriously is not a good sign. The awkward, badly coordinated and uncomfortable don't aid this either. While the music behind the awkward vocals as well as James Hetfield's strong backing vocals are overall "good," I really can't take Lou Reed's chanting seriously.

Somehow I can see how the band seemed to enjoy making this album. The music they wrote is not bad. It has that thrash flair that was present on Death Magnetic and is overall quite good for the classic thrash band. They obviously still have somewhat of an experimental bone in them, and what they heard of Lou Reed's dissonant screeching must have impressed them somehow. Also, I can see that they thought it might have been cool to stick to the music industry with this album. Somehow they succeeded in not only drawing me in to the album but getting it and listening to it a number of times, despite the fact that I hated near every listen. There is a point where "avant-garde" and "experimental" becomes "terrible" and "pointless," and this album has for sure crossed that threshold by many miles.

There's not much more to say on Metallica's tenth studio album. The album, pointlessly running at over 87 minutes, is spread over two discs and is a laborious listen the whole way through. Each song has something hysterical to laugh at, and usually its Reed's warbling spoken word vocals. The album also features a few "epics," most notably the pointlessly long 19-minute drone piece "Junior Dad," which really ends at 3 minutes yet continues on for another 16 minutes in a vindictive rant of droney strings, Reed's occasionally haunting wolf moan, occasional actual music, and an overall pointless run of ambient mush. In the end, LULU has shown itself to be Metallica's most controversial release yet, and it doesn't tilt in their favor. 1 star.

Doomster I once had an interesting discussion with a Metallica elitist.

Elitist: Did you hear the new Metallica album with Lou Reed?

Me: Yeah, what about it?

Elitist: What about it? Are you kidding? It's terrible! It's the worst album of the decade for sure!

Me: Care to elaborate?

Elitist: They sold out!

Me: How did they sell out?

Elitist: Because they went for a cash grab with this new album, LuLu!

Me: Dwell on the aspects you dislike about it?

Elitist: Metallica cut their hair and stopped drinking beer, and then got together with an old guy who makes noise music! It's just a bunch of ambience and stuff! There's no RIFFS, man! It's just Metallica playing some shitty powerchords that sound like Black Sabbath over my grandpa lecturing me! HELL NO! BLACK SABBATH SUCKS! METALLICA ARE THE GOODEST METAL BAND IN THE WORLD!

Me: Metallica were experimenting. They weren't expecting anyone to like it. And you insulting Black Sabbath without acknowledging their importance? Wow, dude. Cutting their hair and reverting to sobreity does not make their music bad. Plenty of bands who look standard and don't do drugs can make amazing music. And there is plenty of riffs on this album. Did you even listen to it yet?

Elitist: No shit, dumbass! Everything about this album sucks! It has no redeeming qualities! The riffs are good, but go nowhere!

Me: You just said there are no riffs, then said that it has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, then complemented the riffs. Time paradox, much...?

Elitist: Screw you man! What I mean is, there are no REAL riffs! I want heavy thrash riffs! I want Ride The Lightning and Kill 'Em All reycled over and over and over! I don't want them experimenting! They should make it a goal to please their fans!

Me: So you want Master Of Puppets Part II? You want absolutely nothing differentiating from the previous efforts whatsoever?

Elitist: Exactly!

Me: You're an idiot, then.

Elitist: The vocals also suck! I wanna hear James sing, and he almost never does! Lou Reed is just boring!

Me: I'm actually quite fond of his monotonous drawl. He adds atmosphere, uniqueness, and experimentation to this album. Something you obviously can't tolerate.

Elitist: Are you actually implying that you like this album?!

Me: Well, yes. It's not perfect, but it is good. Why is it good? Because I can appreciate musical evolution.

Elitist: Fuck you. *Walks off*

Me: When will people learn to appreciate a band going in a different direction? *Sigh*

Warthur The Black Album gets a lot of flack from Metallica fans, but personally I think it's an OK-ish album. It's not brilliant by any means; were the same tunes recorded by some band nobody had heard of for their debut album I suspect it'd have fallen into obscurity. But the fact is that it was recorded by Metallica - and what's more, given the best production job of any Metallica album to date.

Sure, the production doesn't reveal anything particularly special about the songs collected here, which are about as middle-of-the-road as metal can possibly get. But I'd very slightly prefer that to what you get on Justice For All - which is genuinely interesting, novel, and well-composed songs utterly ruined by shoddy production. It's like the difference between popcorn and gourmet food; screw up the fancy dinner and it'll taste horrible, whilst almost nobody can fail to make adequately eatable popcorn. And like average popcorn, the Black Album can be easily consumed without thinking too hard and will leave you feeling vaguely unsatisfied.

UMUR "Sad but True" is a single/EP release by US metal act Metallica. It was released in 1991 through Vertigo Records. "Sad but True" features 4 tracks and a playing time of 24:55 minites so there are plenty of quantity for the money.

We of course get the "regular" version of "Sad but True" which is taken directly off the 1991 "Metallica" album. We´re also treated to a demo version of that track, which is a fan thing more than anything. The real treats here are the re-arranged version of "Nothing Else Matters" titled "Nothing Else Matters (Elevator version)". This version has quite a few added strings and a couple of other surprises. It doesn´t beat the orginal version but it´s pretty interesting. The other treat is a live version of "Creeping Death". I´ve heard Metallica more inspired but this live version of the classic track is pretty good.

"Sad but True" is not the most necessary release by Metallica if you are not a hardcore fan, but it´s a pretty good release deserving a 2.5 - 3 star (55%) rating.

progshine I'm reviewing this as a Metallica release cause, well, it seems like one Metallica release with 3 good guests (not trying to bash the other bands, not at all, you'll see on the review).

Anthrax: Great show full of energy, you can see the joy on the band members faces, also, Joey Belladonna vocals are pretty in shape, specially for a 50 years old man. The fact all of them are using the same t-shirt is very nice, shows the unity of the band, no egos involved, one for all, all for one and a good metal show. Rate: 4

Megadeth: Dave gathered great musicians, they're not really new (but sounds as a one man band with guests). Guitars and bass (David Ellefson is one of the great metal bassists ever) are great. But what the f**k is his voice here? What Dave's trying to do with all that falsettos? Is a pain to watch him singing. And he seems worried and nervous the whole show. I never really watched Megadeth live, so I can't say if he's always been like that. Rate: 3

Slayer: The band hit the stage and their hardcore/thrash/metal fast sound comes right to your face. Kerry King accessories (braces and chains) are a little too much on my opinion, but so are the Jeff Hanneman boots xD But their guitars models are very cool. I do like Slayer and they were the one I wanted to see most, but on stage they look like a prog/hardcore/thrash act, cause it looks like the same song over and over. But still, they have great energy, still 'angry' after all this time and Tom Araya's voice still great. Rate: 4

Before Metallica hit the stage a couple of interviews about the Dio death, all of those guys are fans, for sure.

Metallica: Of course they are the 'big brother' here, playing doubled amount of time than the other bands. And you can say whatever you want to say, but few bands can put up a show like these guys do. They made every penny worth. And James Hetfield is singing better than ever, and in a crooner kinda of microphone xD Trujillo is always a fun scene, walking like a 10 pound Gorilla on stage. And I'm sure I'll never like Lars drumming. And every days that passes one idea comes to my mind stronger and stronger, I really would like to see a James solo album, he would do some serious good thing alone, for sure. But, they'll not have a bigger rate for me, cause of one thing, the show IT IS great, but it's the same show over and over the past 2 tours, same songs, same sequence and even James using the same words with the audience. Rate: 4

All in all, it's worth to watch, with a beer on your side will be even better, even if you do not drink (like myself) xD

AtomicCrimsonRush "Let's hear it for Michael Kamen yeah!" He was the only one who had the guts to do this. This is the ultimate exercise in excess, to marry Metallica with a Symphony orchestra. The DVD is a crystal clear well edited package onthe ultimate event of the year. It is great to watch the orchestra getting into the music and then to see Metallica banging along. The crowd are as raucous as any Metallicrowd and of course it is as heavy as it always is. There are some fantastic surprises such as Call Of Cthulu sounding very Gothic and powerful with the violins and brass. The concert shows in equal measure the band and orchestra trading off seamlessly. It has been done before of course with Deep Purple and other metal acts. It is almost becoming a cliche of late with many bands taking up the idea including Kiss, Within Temptation, Dream Theater and Therion, all of which are captured on DVD. Non metal acts have done it such as Camel, Yes and ELP. The weird thing about it is these orchestral and rock marriages always work for me. I love to hear that massive orchestral sound with the crunching distortion of guitars. To hear a violin sweep across when you expect a guitar solo is bliss to my ears.

There are so many highlights on this DVD including Master of Puppets, more dramatic than ever, the darkness of super heavy The Thing That Should Not Be, The Memory Remains, iconic with audience participation, Nothing Else Matters, a definitive highlight and the crowd are in raptures when this is played. For Whom the Bell Tolls sounds very Gothic with the sweeping violins, and the song One is a masterpiece with the orchestral accompaniment.

The footage is professionally shot and edited as you would expect and it is nice to see the orhestra mamebrs having fun with this. None of the songs are less heavy, they are augmented to majestic heights. Watching this concert live is the best experience which is perhaps a pinnacle of the group's existence. Soon after it all turned sour as we know, captured on the astonishing Some Kind of Monster doco, but it is so great to see Metallica at the height of their powers as we do in S & M. Check out this DVD to see metal at its grandest.

AtomicCrimsonRush St Clanger, I'm madly in anger with you... but I love the documentary!

The best thing about the much maligned St Anger is the documentary behind it, Some Kind of Monster.

The band went through immense turmoil during the making of this album. Hetfield left the band for rehab and to clear the cobwebs in his head. With lyrics about his lifestyle and his 'deathstyle', the content of 'St Anger' is bitter, morbid and twisted, and there is no heart in it. Hetfield sounds like he has vocal diarrhea, a word incidentally, from the Greek word meaning 'flowing through'. The only thing flowing on this monstrosity is the cash from the fans who unfortunately were blind sided into buying an expensive beer coaster.

The documentary is a fly on the wall look at how St Wanger was created and it is not a pretty sight. Nothing is left to the imagination as we witness the personal trauma suffered by all concerned. Hefield in particular comes across as breaking down in fornt of us all and it truly sad and as emotionally raw as you will see in a doco, even more so than Anvil. The best thing as far as for the band that occurs is the introduction of bassist Robert Trujillo, who jumped on board the Metallica Machine and he looks stunned when they say it is him they want. Bob Rock on the other hand annoys and fascinates at intervals, making his presence felt but he is no where near as annoying as the counsellor who just jumps in every chance he gets. Some of the things he says are profound and some are just plain frustrating.

When Hetfield leaves it is a compelling movie and you really feel for the band and crew. Lars is especially vocal and very hurt it seems but he is intelligent to know that Hetfield will return; deep down he knows it. Of course the result of this personal chaos is the album stinks. The lyrics were written on toilet paper so that the music industry could wipe their bums on them. Ulrich is most worried about this release but it is out of their hands and we see on the doco how a band is treated when they are at their lowest and it is not for the faint hearted. To see Metallica falling apart is distressing for the fan but as we know they have a triumphant return with the incredible Death Magnetic. I also loved Megadeth's intervention to help out in places, and the scene where Mustaine expresses his pain at being second best in Megadeth is apowerfully moving moment; one of the most unforgettable parts of the doco.

We hear some of the inane lyrics being rehearsed such as the infamous unforgiveable crapola of Frantic; "tick tick tick tick tick tick tock, Frantic tick tick tick tick tick tick tock, Treading water full of worry, This frantic tick tick talk goes hurry... my lifestyle determines my deathstyle" or "This is the face that you hide from, This is the mask that comes undone, Ominous, I am in us, Ominous, I am in us..." or "No compromise, My heart won't pump the other way, Wake the sleeping giant, Wake the beast, Wake the sleeping dog, No, let him sleep..." or "Tear it down, Strip my layers off, My turpentine, Old paint, old looks, Cover up the past, White heat, white light, Super whity, bones, Bones of you and I, Pure if I ... Can't you help me?" and finally "Who's in charge of my head today, Dancin' devils in angels way, It's my time now, Look out motherf***ers here I come, Gonna make my head my home..." Of course we all know the lyrics are a result of how disturbed the band were at the time; nothing was going right and as you see in the doco the band are just going through the motions simply to continue.

The whole background on this album is compelling viewing and the documentary is one of the best 'warts and all' fly- on-the-wall docos in history. Avoid the album, watch the movie.