TRAINWRECKORDS: "Lulu" by Lou Reed and Metallica

I hadn’t actually heard anything from this album until this video. I think I’ve been consuming niche music YouTube content for too long cause one of my first thoughts upon hearing it was “oh it’s like a heavier Current 93.”

Mr Intheshadows, I don't know how tongue-in-cheek was your recurrent despairing at being in over your head but let me say you are not, you are a good music critic/youtuber/podcaster and I found your take on Lou Reed being accessible very insightful. You explained very thoroughly why Lulu did not work. Maybe it was not a pleasant experience for you but as a longtime follower, it was as good of any of your other videos.

All these lyrics are giving Dewey Cox in his Dylan phase. Update: yayy Todd agrees.

oh my god THAT’S what the “James blew up for you!” line from the St Anger Trainwreckord is from??

take a walk on the wild ride the lightning

How did I never get a notification for this? Damn. Should be an exciting watch.

I have no doubt there's a great story to be told about Lulu, but the music is just so bad. As someone who likes both metal, punk, alt rock, and Broadway, this really doesn't work for any of them.

I remember a reviewer that said "The only person who gets a pass on this is Robert Trujillo because it's clear he has as much of a say of what goes on in Metallica as I do."

33:13 edit cuts into the beginning of you saying "Lou Reed should have..." 33:20 "It was supposed to make Metallica..." has a similar late cut

Metallica is my favorite band. I'll defend Saint Anger and Load/Reload all day. Even I forgot how fucking awful this album was.

All right, now that we're talking about Lulu I have two things to say: 1. I want to hear Metallica cover Waves of Fear. 2. Apparently Lou Reed had some actual chart success in England. I remember looking that up a while back. Good for England I guess?

I thought it'd never happen.. too weird, too messy, too avant garde... but Todd finds a way

From 32:10-32:17 the background audio is louder than you. 32:50 I think was supposed to say “ten more minutes of droning” but might have been cut off. The end screen is “Zoot Suit Riot”

I don't think it's brought up enough that Metallica's gradual descent in quality may have a lot to do with James sounding more and more like a parody of himself. I'm not saying he became a bad vocalist, but whatever changes he made to his singing after the Black Album really led him on a slippery slope that continued over the next two decades. It resulted in laughable moments like the unhinged "FRAN-TIC-TIC-TOCK", but what really did him in for me was hearing him perform Master Of Puppets at their Hall of Fame induction, and him slipping into a contemporary death metal voice. There became no way to take his singing seriously after a certain point. It's fine when he's doing lyrics he and Lars wrote, but as evidenced here, beyond lethal when forced to sing something more abstract and literary.

It’s about damn time!!!!

I will still defend Lulu as an experiment in the avant garde for both - it's not the most enjoyable listen but it is interesting

Pat Finnerty sighting at 21:52

We are one step closer to a Trainwreckords on Metal Machine Music and I’m here for it

Can't seem to view the video because Youtube thinks I'm a bot.

Lulu is a masterpiece. Proof Metallica should've gotten someone else write their songs like Aerosmith did. And it should've been Lou Reed all long.

very fun to watch all my fellow wrestling fans go "oohhh THAT'S where that botchamania thing came from"

Your catrd for who owns the music is wrong: it’s about Zoot Suit Riot. You should change that before it goes out to the wider public.

"yeah, meaning! i understand this!" took me out

i'm not a cool alternative guy - my favorite musician is taylor swift - so maybe that's the issue, but the lyrics of this album sound like they were written by that guy in your Gen Ed college courses that tries to argue with the professor every single class and puts 4chan memes in his powerpoints 😭

This is not an error but I'd love if you captioned the lyrics before you comment "that's a book," somewhere around 26:30, because I can't hear it well and missed the joke lol

At the end it says, "Zoot Suit Riot is owned by Mojo Records."

You’ve made enough pro wrestling references in other videos that I’m sure you’re already aware of this, but for those here who aren’t: There’s a popular pro wrestling series on YouTube called “Botchamania”, which compiles moments in wrestling where things get messed up, or “botched”. One of the more common “botches” is when someone is supposed to get slammed through a table, but the table doesn’t break. And it’s a running joke that, when this happens, James Hetfield screaming “I am the table!” From “The View” plays. It’s become so ubiquitous that fans will sometimes bring signs stating it to shows, and even announcers at smaller shows will reference it as well if such a botch occurs.

I AM THE TABLE

I remember around the time this album dropped, one of the writers at MetalSucks commented that Lou Reed going metal wasn’t doomed to fail – that if he’d partnered up with a band like Om or Sunn O))) or Earth, he might have been able to cook something decent. But we got what we got. I’d say that Soused by Scott Walker and Sunn O))) is the good alternate version of Lulu, and also happened to be the final studio by an alternative legend that Bowie idolized (not counting OSTs). It would never win over a general audience, but as an experimental musical summit: Walker and Sunn pair well together, the lyrics don’t require multiple research breaks and Walker ended his career in much better form than Lou did. Look it up if you want to try something different, or need music to scare off bar patrons and house guests (may not work if they're dressed in black robes and like the sound of bullwhips).

I love the -research break- joke. Gag? Bit? Whatever it is, it becomes funny.

I had no idea this is where "I Am the Table" came from in Botchamania

Ummmmm.... Happy Pride Month, y'all? This is an interesting way to kick off June, but I'm not mad. We knew this would eventually happen, so we might as well revisit this now. (Honestly, I don't hate this. This may not be the most incisive Lou Reed or Metallica album, but it's one I'm glad exists. During a time when bands like Five Finger Death Punch and Shinedown were among the biggest names in rock, at least these folx were still giving us something different.)

Metallica did do one song about sex very early in their career-Mechanix, which was later turned into "the Four Horseman" and the original version ended up on Megadeth's debut album "Killing is my Business". Also the original lyrics for "Jump in the Fire" were more sexual in nature, but that was changed after Dave got fired.

noise issue where the background video starts playing too early around 32:20, ending card still says zoot suit ruit

I've been keeping up an ultimate "Worst Lines of Trainwreckords" list that includes such examples as "peñius colada", "modren man", and most recently, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis (but mostly Macklemore) presenting a baffling term for pooping with “Bathroom door open when she boo boo-ing”. If you are reading this, have the time, have watched this new episode, and think you know what the worst line of lyrics from the covered album is, that is in this episode, I would appreciate leaving a reply with your opinion. I want to get an accurate consensus. I’ve noticed people will give this comment a like but not reply to it. While I appreciate my comments getting a like, a comment is way more helpful, so try to do both. (A little late posting this because I actually went to the theater for once to see Backrooms)

Didn't see this one coming since Metallica already had an episode, but I guess it was one for Reed himself so it kinda counts.

It's a shame Pat Boone's "In a Metal Mood: No More Mr Nice Guy" doesn't qualify as a Trainwreckord. He was bounced from an evangelical TV show until he disowned the album, but it didn't wreck his career, and was a modest commercial success. But unlike Lou Reed with Metallica, heavy metal big-band Pat Boone is AWESOME despite himself.

Maybe this is the English major in me who owns shelves of poetry books, but dammit, count me as one of Lulu’s defenders. Yes, it’s very weird and no, it’s not remotely for everyone, but it’s sort of like Megalopolis: if I put away my preconceptions and just accept what it’s doing on its own terms, Lulu works for me. I even like all nineteen minutes of “Junior Dad”. I may not play it very often, but I’m glad it exists, and I’ll take this over St. Anger any day. If eighty-year-old me gets to say I told you so when everyone else decides it was pretty good after all, I can live with that. I’ll say what said in the St. Anger comments: I really think this would have gone over better (or at least been not so hated) if random musicians had played on this instead of Metallica. Having them on board skewed Lulu’s expectations in a way that made this even harder for most people to accept. It’s as if they went in to see a John Wick movie and got Last Tango in Paris instead.

At about 32:10 there’s a huge audio issue where the narration is almost completely drowned out by the video - just in case you didn’t catch it!

Welt, Todd. A German world is called a Welt. Thorough and hilarious look into a moment in music history I'd not heard of; really liked this one!

You credited Zoot Suit Riot at the end.

It's probably because I've been watching Fate/Strange Fake, but as soon as "Jack" was mentioned, I immediately figured out it must be the Ripper.

I personally love this album. I think for me important facts going into it are Lou Reed's proximity to transness. Its a messy history but he was sent to electric shock therapy by his parents for queerness and then as an artist came up in Andy Warhol's factory surrounded by trans people and even has trans partners. Im a transwoman and maybe reading my own experiences a bit too deeply into this record but so much of it feels the forces of self hating internalized transphobia destroying someone. Not to say Lou himself was a secret trans person or anything but this record really speaks a lot to my experiences trying to understand my own identity in this world.

Starting at about 32:10 the background is too loud and your voice is set to background volume until about 32:36. Great vid!

32:10 audio overlap

The end title card is from Cherry Poppin Daddies

Well the albumn not boring at least tbh

Hell yeah, I finally get to hear where the Botchamania "I Am The Table" bit came from

The “The End” panel says “Zoot Suit Riot” is owned by Mojo Records (presumably an oversight)

Check the audio levels at 32:10, I think the voiceover and music are switched

14:38. Pandora's Box was directed by GW Pabst, not FW Pabst. The FW belongs to FW Murnau, who directed Nosferatu.

Remember to charge! To remind yourself, leave a note on your TABLE

One of the first comments about Lulu I read mentioned that Metallica finally found a way to keep people from stealing their albums.

i knew i spent money on patreon for a REASON 🦅🦅🦅🦅🎉🎉🎉🎉🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳💥💥💥💥💯💯💯💯💯

OH MY GOD ITS HAPPENING

FUCK YES

There's some strong static at the very beginning of the video. It doesn't seem to be in the rest of the video (I spot-checked)

GIMME TABLE, GIMME TABLE GIMME TABLE, I DESIRE (TABLE)

The main question that arises for this album will always be who is this for. And the answer to that is me. It is made for me and nobody else.

Ha. I was right lol

It’s finally here

I AM THE TABLE