The controversial rock album David Bowie called a masterpiece: “Lou’s greatest work”
Everyone’s a critic when it comes to the greatest bands in the world. Even though there might be some merit behind every album in an artist’s catalogue, there are just as many people who will either say it wasn’t as good as their previous one or it was too experimental for them to take seriously. David Bowie never let anyone’s opinion dictate the kind of music he liked, and when he heard Lou Reed’s swan song with Metallica, he thought that the fanbase grossly mistreated it.
Despite praise from ‘The Starman’, an album like this was going to be a hard sell. Reed had already been one of the biggest figures in the world of art rock, so putting him together with the same band responsible for meatheaded anthems like ‘Enter Sandman’ wasn’t exactly the kind of pairing that most envisioned.
Then again, there were many ways it could have gone right. After all, Metallica’s brand of vicious hard rock wouldn’t exist if not for The Velvet Underground, and when they collaborated at The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to do renditions of songs like ‘Sweet Jane’, it actually sounded pretty damn good.
For the record, that wasn’t what Reed had in mind. Taking inspiration from the play of the same name, Lulu was a way for him to make his own version of theatre with the thunderous sounds of metal behind him. Both artists may have sounded jazzed to be working together, but the number of people lining up to hate on it was too great to ignore.
Compared to the metalheads that just wanted to hear some hard rock, hearing this old man droning over James Hetfield’s riffs actively undermines it. That wasn’t really the point of the record. This is a Lou Reed album first and a Metallica project second, and for Bowie, this was an inspired choice for him.
According to Reed’s widow, Laurie Anderson, Bowie was head over heels for the record, remarking at The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, “After Lou’s death, David Bowie made a big point of saying to me, ‘Listen, this is Lou’s greatest work. This is his masterpiece. Just wait. It will be like Berlin. It will take everyone a while to catch up.’”
With hindsight, has Lulu garnered a new reception? Not really. As much as people have made memes out of songs like ‘The View’ for the “I AM THE TABLE” line, the hatred towards the album has admittedly cooled a little bit, with some people just accepting what it is rather than blindly raging against it.
If anything, Bowie may have taken a bit of inspiration from the project when making his swan song. Although many may not have liked the weird sexualisation of Reed’s words on his album, Blackstar has gotten nothing but praise since Bowie’s passing, all while still putting in sexual lyrics in tracks like ‘Tis A Pity She Was a Whore’.
That divide in public opinion might have much more to do with which artist was releasing the album. Bowie may have had a considerable amount of star power by the end of his career, but Reed’s status as an art rock veteran wasn’t enough for something this strange to be accepted by the masses.
