Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	45/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
The Atlantic	favorable
The Daily Telegraph
Entertainment Weekly	D
Montreal Gazette
NME	7/10
Pitchfork Media	1.0/10
Rolling Stone
Q
Spin	6/10
Uncut	favorable

Lulu is a collaborative album between rock singer-songwriter Lou Reed and heavy metal band Metallica. It was released on October 31, 2011 by Warner Bros. in the U.S. and Vertigo elsewhere. The album is the final full-length studio recording project that Reed was involved in before his death in October 2013. It was recorded in San Rafael, California, during April through June 2011, after Reed had played with Metallica at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 25th Anniversary Concert which led to them wanting to collaborate. The lead single, titled "The View", was released on September 27, 2011.

Conceptually, the album is based on the two "Lulu plays" by the German playwright Frank Wedekind (1864–1918). The majority of composition is centered on spoken word delivered by Reed over instrumentals composed by Metallica, with occasional backing vocals provided by Metallica lead vocalist James Hetfield. Reed wrote the majority of the lyrics. The album was released worldwide on October 31, 2011, and on November 1 in North America. Upon its release, Lulu received mixed reviews from music critics, and an extremely negative response from fans.

Reed and Metallica had both been on the bill in October 1997 for the eleventh of Neil Young's Bridge concerts. The conception of the collaboration project began in 2009 when both Metallica and Lou Reed performed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 25th Anniversary Concert. After that performance, they began "kicking around the idea of making a record together," but did not start working together until two years later. In February 2011, Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett announced that in May 2011 the group would start working on something that's "not 100 percent a Metallica record. It's a recording project, let's put it that way." The project was revealed to be a collaboration with Lou Reed once the recording of the album had been completed in June 2011.

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Wikipedia