Lou Reed And Metallica Announce 2011 Release Date For New Album ‘Lulu’

Metallica and Lou Reed have finally spilled the beans (well, some beans) on their new collaboration project, revealing via Twitter that the 10 song album the quintet recorded together will be called 'Lulu' and that it will be available this fall.

Now that we're over the initial 'Huh?/WTF' reaction to news that The Velvet Underground frontman and Metallica had recorded an album together, we can finally talk about what the hell this thing is going to sound like.

Metallica (I'm assuming it was them because Lou is too old to use the internet) took to their newly created Metallica/Lou Reed website and Twitter to announce the first batch of real details on the forthcoming album. Aside from the album's name -- 'Lulu' -- and the release date -- November 1st -- we'll let you gather the rest from the official statement from the band:

"The musical collaboration between Lou Reed and Metallica, 'Lulu,' is coming your way this Fall and this space will be your spot for all things Loutallica(!). We want to start sharing with you just how the 'Lulu' project, recorded at HQ just a few short months ago, is coming together. As you can see this site is a work in progress and the plan is to build it before your very eyes. Please bear with us while we piece it all together!

'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.

We can't wait to share this music and the whole experience with you. Please visit us often... we'll be posting updates on a frequent basis."

There you have it, the new "Loutallica" album 'Lulu' is coming at you this November. Now on to the next question: Can an album based on a musical about a dancer be kick ass? While it sounds more like a cross between the films 'Black Swan' and 'Precious' than a Metallica record, we'll give them the benefit of the doubt until we hear this thing.