METALLICA + LOU REED ALBUM INSPIRED BY BELOVED 1930S COMIC STRIP LITTLE LULU
Metallica and Lou Reed have announced a November 1 release date for their collaborative album, which we now know to be titled Lulu. The album was apparently inspired by Marjorie Henderson Buell’s 1930s comic strip, Little Lulu, as well as the animated television series and films that the strip inspi–
Oh, wait. That’s not right at all. Here’s what actually inspired the album, according to a statement on the collaboration’s official website:
“‘Lulu’ was inspired by German expressionist writer Frank Wededkind’s plays ‘Earth Spirit’ and ‘Pandora’s Box,’ which tell a story of a young abused dancer’s life and relationships and are now collectively known as the ‘Lulu Plays.’ Since their publication in the early 1900’s, the plays have been the inspiration for a silent film (‘Pandora’s Box,’ 1929), an opera, and countless other creative endeavors. Originally the lyrics and musical landscape were sketched out by Lou for a theatrical production in Berlin, but after coming together with the ‘Tallica boys for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concerts in New York in 2009 all guilty parties knew they wanted to make more music together. Lou was inspired enough by that performance to recently ask the band to join him in taking his theatrical ‘Lulu’ piece to the next level and so starting in early May of this year we were all camped out recording at HQ studios in Northern California, bringing us to today and ten complete songs.”
I had to watch G.W. Pabst’s cinematic adaptation of Pandora’s Box for a film history class my freshmen year of college, but whatever I was supposed to learn from it was immediately erased from my brain following the course’s final exam. Which is my way of telling you that I have absolutely nothing intelligent to add to this conversation, other than to say I honestly never thought there would be a Metallica album called Lulu.
ANYWAY, “Loutallica,” as they’re now referring to the project (I’m not fucking kidding), still has yet to release any music or even some album art for us to peep, but they do have a logo for the album title, which you’re free to enjoy below, as well as some song titles, including “Junior Dad,” “Mistress Dread,” and “Pumping Blood.” I’ll be forced to write more about this as November 1 approaches.
-AR
