Lou Reed And Metallica – ‘The View’ [REVIEW]

Lou Reed and Metallica have dropped the first full song from their upcoming collaboration record 'Lulu', and it just got fast-tracked for the worst song of the year award.

Nobody really knew what to make of this collaboration when it was first announced -- Lou Reed and Metallica, really? The two polar opposites of the musical spectrum have joined forces to record an album based on a couple of plays by German expressionist Frank Wedekind. The ten song "Loutallica" album, 'Lulu', will be released on November 1st.

The odd-couple have finally allowed the release of  the first full song from 'Lulu' -- 'The View'. The feeble spoken-word delivery Reed brings to the table combined with Metallica's simplistic old-school metal riffage make for one of the worst combinations we've had the displeasure of hearing.

Lets break this one down piece by piece and see how we got here:

Vocals: Lou Reed does exactly what you would expect: old school beatnik style spoken word. At certain points, especially during the second verse, the lyrics and their delivery are even laughable. Metallica's James Hetfield does come in, during what we believe to be chorus of this clusterf---, to lend some vocal support to his ailing musician friend. Hetfield's portion adds some much needed aggression to the track, but when you repeatedly yell, "I am the table," -- it gets very hard to take seriously.

Guitars: The guitars start out very slow and uninteresting, but gather steam when Hetfield's voice joins the party. Kirk Hammet's fiery burst of tremolo picking towards the end is the only enjoyable part of 'The View'. If it weren't for that -- this would be the first recipient of our "0 horns" rating.

Drums: Lars' drumming is not very impressive here, very garage band. Given what he had to work with -- we're not surprised, we wouldn't waste much effort here either. At least his snare sounds better than it did on 'St. Anger'.

Final Verdict: Metallica kicks it into their lowest gear so Lou Reed doesn't break a hip trying to keep up with his "poetry". Aside from the last minute, this track is complete garbage. You know it's bad when the most entertaining part of a song is the laughter you get from the negative comments on Soundcloud.

The View by Lou Reed & Metallica