I was prepared for the worst but nothing quite as bad as the song “The View,” from the upcoming Lou Reed/Metallica collaboration. If this track is indicative of what’s on the rest of the album, it will end up embarrassing everyone involved. This will satisfy no one…not Lou’s fans, not Metallica’s.

As music, it’s intolerably bad, sounding like some hellish noise cooked up in the basement by a 10th rate metal band and their loony uncle and the lyrics read like something scrawled on the back of a goth kid’s composition book. A sample:

I WANT TO SEE YOUR SUICIDE
I WANT TO SEE YOU GIVE IT UP
YOUR LIFE OF REASON
I WANT YOU ON THE FLOOR
AND IN A COFFIN YOUR SOUL SHAKING
I WANT TO HAVE YOU DOUBTING
EVERY MEANING YOU’VE AMASSED
LIKE A FORTUNE

OH THROW IT AWAY

FOR WORSHIP SOMEONE
WHO ACTIVELY DESPISES YOU

As a long suffering Lou Reed fan, I was hoping that my gut feelings that this project was going to be disastrous would be proven wrong. If the rest of the album is as shitty as this track, it could go down in history as one of the most misbegotten musical couplings of all time.
 

The View by Lou Reed & Metallica

Well, do I get a medal for making it through the entire song?  I can actually envision an alternate universe where this collaboration could have worked, but it sort of depends on Lou Reed remembering how to fit music and lyrics together and Metallica giving a damn about what comes out under their name.

Bad Idea.

If nothing else, lower the vocals in the mix.

I knew it would be bad even before it came into existence. Lou Reed hasn’t made a good album in 20 years and Metallica hasn’t made one since “Ride the Lightning.”

That was just terrible.

Almost as horrible as Jack White with the Insane Clown Posse…

there is a word for beyond-sux but i don’t know what it is

“They also carry out these ugly activities with almost complete impunity — not only too big to fail, but also “too big to jail.””

I kinda like it, especially since it’s such a wrong coupling. It reminds me of Bingo Gazingo, Suicide and later Henry Rollins…which put together makes something absurd. Since when has Lou Reed been considered a wordsmith? His lyrics have always been stupid.

This… is a joke, right?

I once saw James Hetfield laugh when he was told his music was used to torture prisoners.  I guess he decided to take it to the next level with this turdongle.

Lou Reed the original Metallica wrapper

>

http://oi54.tinypic.com/o56hiq.jpg

Jeez, I am so happy to find out I’m not alone. I thought maybe I was just a grumpy old man. Well, maybe I am one anyway.

That track sounds like when you’re too stoned to get up and turn down the volume on shitty music. Heavy in all the wrong ways. What lazy fucking shit.

I’m with Ed - lower vox in mix.
It sounds as if he is singing with a backing track, not together .

“Since when has Lou Reed been considered a wordsmith?”

Well, since always. He’s a damn good writer. That’s why these lyrics are so shocking.

Maybe it is better when they die at 27.

It’s fine- could have seriously done with a few edits, though. Takes an age to kick in, then drifts off again. Kind of fun…

It’s like two separate songs. What’s depressing, apart from how awful the thing is, is that it doesn’t matter whether Lou is serious or throwing shit at his audience yet again the result is the same.

I watched a couple of clips of Lou at Lollapalooza in 2009 and watching him fixing his beady eye on an autocue while moaning away was just horrific. The clips are worth watching for the great band, especially the sax player, but Lou is terrible.

He should just go away. The way Bowie appears to have elegantly bowed out of music should be an example to all these fuckers. Except Iggy.

WOW!
When I first heard rumors of this ill-advised pairing, I imagined something bad - could actually hear something in my head.
But nothing like this.
This is amazingly crappy. It sounds like a parody of both parties.

lou reed peaked with the velvet underground and has since been subjecting everyone to his (mostly) unlistenable horseshit, meanwhile metallica seems to be doing anything in their power to stomp on their legacy….

As much as I hate to say it, the problem is more with Lou than Metallica—his voice is shot, in fact this song reminds me of those “rapping granny” records, he warbles and wavers and is pushing his vocal chords through their last steps. 

This is one of those times when I ask myself “what is music, anyway?  And Why do I listen to it?”

They could all have saved a lot of money by just defecating into each other’s hats.

Oh, man.
I want to like Lou’s stuff. He just makes it very hard.
he releases 10 crap albums for every 1 good album.
When he’s good, he’s fantastic, but…

This has producer Hal Wilner attached to it, which doesn’t surprise me in the least.
Wilner has produced some of the worst-considered music of the last quarter century.
Wonder why Los Lobos are singing “Jungle Book” songs? Or why Steve Bushemi is on a Lou reed albums?
Yeah…

Damn it.

The reality is that if you just found a decent DJ, like Dangermouse, and had him create an album of combined Reed / Metallica music it would probably sound much better than this nightmare collab.

The last 20 years or so of Lou Reed’s career have been chock full of ridiculous, unlistenable crap. Have we forgotten Set The Twilight Reeling already?

Metallica was barely tolerable when they were a thrash band. They haven’t done anything worth a damn since Cliff died, and have been a joke for like 22 of the last 25 years.
I literally laughed when I heard Death Magnetic. I thought it was a shitty joke band making fun of Metallica =(

We used to rehearse downtown and often would invite old hobos to listen providing they bought us beer, one of them would invariably grab the mic and ramble while we tuned up; it sounds exactly like this.

Wow, monumentally horrible.  Lou’s sing/speech trademark is really tired here.  Like he’s try to rush as many words in as he can ‘cause they’re soooo fucking important.  What a load of crap.  Lou, how about another “Street Hassle” or anything other than this.  They make each other sound even worse than they do alone.

ive learn not to judge an album for the first track i listen, but i see absolutely no effort in this song, what a joke, if the rest of this album has the same effort i can’t imagine what it’ll be to listen the 20 minute album closer…

I like the concept, but it sounds like they phoned it in. Metallica has pulled off spoken word: see “To Live is To Die”, but this sounded like they made it up at the studio.

Also, is this a rough mix or has it been mastered?

In conclusion: Can someone move Lars’ kick so it’s in time?

maybe metallica took too serious the whole torture music thing..

Sounds more like a really terrible mashup than people working together.

I’ve said it before, but I think we may be looking at Metal Machine Music: volume 2 here.

Holy moly that’s bad.

Imagining a kind of sitcom, Curb Your Enthusiasm kind of moment wherein both parties end up running into each other years before at some rock awards thing, exchange this false sentiment to ‘do a collaborations’ (like, ‘let’s do lunch sometime’) and both parties feeling strangely obligated to the other to do it: Metallica feeling sorry for Lou and Lou thinking he’d graciously lend Metallica some much needed hipster cred.

Even Hitler hates it:
http://youtu.be/x9LcJwX9dnE
I’ll stick with Slayer…

Tihi, oh oh Leathernun, right?...

Blame Jan Wenner-I believe the pairing of Reed & Metallica was originally his idea, or someone else on Rolling Stone’s end, when putting together the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame show in 2009 at which Reed joined the band during it’s set.

Ed has it right. lower the vox. then after that, lower the background music. is it at zero yet? ahhh, now thats some good music.

Lou Reed has a history of making the most misunderstood (even worst) music of the time. Metal Machine Music is a good example. I don’t think people actually listen to it but it is thought of by some as an important artistic work in his career. This impulse to scrape the absolute bottom of the barrel goes all the way back to the Velvet Underground. Bottom line, Lou Reed doesn’t care if everyone in the world hates it. He really doesn’t. I don’t think you can embarrass this man as his work has been maligned from the beginning of his career.
Do I hate this? Absolutely, but I can’t listen to anything Reed has put out post 1975. If anything, he did catch everyone’s attention which hasn’t happened in a long time.

You know that hi-hat has a pedal on it, right?

I cant stop laughing…... really are all Americans this funny,I don’t think so.
Oh well I hope they make loads of money out of it, and then the joke is on us.

Nick,

I predict the album will be a huge commercial flop.

Well I’m over here wanting to hear the next track.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I just cant help being fascinated.  Reed does that.  He makes you hate him for a few days and then suddenly he’s inside your head like he was always there.

The best rock show I ever saw was Reed at the Wiltern in L.A. back in the late nineties.

Sounds like a 2nd rate pastiche of Scitt Walker concept!

SO BAD IT’S RAD!

(The Metallica part sounds good, anyway…)

honestly, you all are gonna wish me a slow dead, but after we all have been expecting so horrible stuff I think it’s not SO bad, considering that that’s Metallica typical sound, that always bored me, but improved with uncle’s vocals. Simple, but more enjoyable than any metal stuff. Although, for me the live songs of VU’s revisions are a crime, but not this, amigos.

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

Above all else I was very curious about what the result of the Lou Reed/Metallica paring would be.  I didn’t know much LR but I’ve been a huge Metallica fan since I was in grade school (I’m 31).  Then I listen to the song, and now I know what it would sound like if a stoned, on the brink of death Johnny Cash was talking over a rejected Load-era track.  I waited so long for them to knock off the crap and put out another kick-ass album (Death Magnetic), and then they follow it up with…whatever this is.  Every time they try to be Led Zepplin they always sound like shit, when in reality Metallica is the biggest heavy band in history simply because they just did their own thing.  Something like this makes me think it’s time for Metallica to hang it up.

Lou’s muse up and fled after the Velvets. The Blue Mask is the only solo Lou that had any of the old magic.
I think the shock treatments he had as a teen really kicked in after 1972 -
And yes, if you can make it through all 5:18 of this you deserve a medal - I lasted till 2:18.
Ludicris, meet Lou-dicrous.

I am as ready to pan this as everyone else, but a few of the comments (“will be a huge commercial flop”) make me wonder whether y’all have ever actually heard Lou Reed before…

He is generally hard to listen to.
He’s for very specific tastes.
His stuff sometimes takes 400 listens before it magically changes from awful to stunning.

Now, I don’t think this is “Magic and Loss,” “The Blue Mask,” Berlin,” etc.
But, you know… a single track from any of those albums would likely have sounded questionable taken out of context as well…

“His stuff sometimes takes 400 listens before it magically changes from awful to stunning.”

What a ridiculous statement.

seems like I’m always waiting for that angry Hetfield vocal to kick in or that Lou Reed sludgy metal noice to kill this hyper clean sound… but no . worst of both worlds reunited.

Even worse than when Metallica teamed up with Ja-Rule.  Fuck you, Lou Reed.

WTF was that. This song has to go down in history as total crap. I’ve heard cats fuck with better sound.

God, I pray that this does not get added to HJY’s play list.

@Marc Campbell: You have really never had an album that took you tons of listens before you finally cracked it?

That’s too bad, because many (if not MOST) of my favorite albums that changed the way I heard music have taken me a while to crack.

Lou Reed’s “Magic and Loss” was that way.

I suppose in a point-and-click era, if it doesn’t grab a listener after the first 4 bars, they point and click somewhere else…

But that’s not how I’ve found a lot of really amazing music, and it’s sort of a shame you find that ridiculous.

Marc, I must disagree with you about the ‘400 listens’ thing.  I’ve often had to force myself through repeat torture sessions just to even begin to hear the finer nuances that underlie some stealth-genius records. Take ‘Bridges to Babylon’ by the Rolling Stones for instance.  This record, upon first gracing my eager ears, was immediately dismissed as ‘trash.’  I called a friend that night and screamed into the phone, ‘What the fuck has happened to the Stones?  They’re awful!  Jesus, what a waste of my evening!’

Well, I remained outraged for several weeks but continued to doubt my own first impressions.  One day, while driving and listening at the same time, I realized at a red light that ‘Bridges to Babylon’ was in fact a fine album and worthy of its place on my shelf.  So I kept it and every so often - say once in six years or so - I’ll put on ‘Never Make a Saint of Me’ and tap a foot lightly and admire my own tenacity.

But it wasn’t really 400 listens.  It was probably more like 60.

I found an easy way to make the noise stop, I stuck 2 no. 2 pencils ,freshly sharpened , into my ears, as far as they would go… no more noise!!!! That was fucking painful as hell, and the pencils hurt a little too.

Alessandro,

What I found ridiculous is Katy suggesting that a song may take up to 400 listens to appreciate. I don’t think I’ve ever listened to a song 400 times…not even my own while recording.

Marc,

I know.  I’ve never listened 400 times either.  I love Lou Reed and I simply hate to hate his music.  I just can’t let myself do it.  I’ll listen 400 times if that’s what it takes.  But yes, ultimately, this poor track just kind of makes me cringe.

I didn’t really need to listen to that Babylon thing 60 times either.  I knew it stank like a foot on the first listen.

Clearly, listening to an album 400 times just to know whether it is good is hyperbole.

But taking weeks/months to drop my preconceived notions of what a particular album ought to be and listening to it on its own terms is a process for me.

And there ARE albums I’ve listened to 400 times.
It’s just that I probably wouldn’t listen to it 400 times if I didn’t already know I liked it.

I’ve listened to a couple Lou Reed-related albums 400 times, I think.
His stuff tends to make more sense after the initial clunkiness of it passes.

Katy,

I didn’t want you to think I didn’t know you were just using hyperbole.  I do it all the time.  There are in fact albums that have taken me a while to admire also.

And yes, one must be very careful with Mr. Lou Reed.  He’s a trickster.  What seem like clunky lyrics one day do actually end up as wild street poetry the next day in my mind.  He’s the best in the world at pulling those fake outs.

I will tell you that already, thinking about the lyrics to this tune, I’m beginning to see something of what he’s up to.  I think it starts with thinking about who he’s really talking to.

Beginning to see the light.

“Last twenty years”? ‘Ecstasy’ was perfectly acceptable to me.

heard the samples and laughed out loud , c’mon metallica colab albums are FAIL… please make another metallica ep dont give us this garbage

Been a fan since the sixties and have given all Lou’s works, good and not so good, time as a listener (never 400 unless it was REALLY good!). This is indeed, ‘intolerably bad’, musically and lyrically and sounds like it was done to get out of a bad label deal or an alimony requirement.

It’s quite sad in a way, seeing a writer of such incredible influence, sounding tired and lacking conviction while espousing instructions like some surreal bank robbery gone wrong. Even the sound track to all this lurches and stumbles like a drunken viagra episode where no one’s getting laid. Sorry guys, time to put this in a vault, shake hands and walk away, far away…....

I would be hard pressed not to bet money that Juggalos/ettes would add this crap to their already astoundingly distasteful collection.