Lulu (Lou Reed and Metallica album)
Encyclopedia
Lulu is a collaborative album between rock
singer-songwriter
Lou Reed
, and heavy metal
band Metallica
. The album was recorded in San Rafael, California
during April through June of 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 from the album, titled "The View", was released on September 27, 2011 to a widely negative reception on the internet
and failed to chart anywhere. The second single was announced to be "Iced Honey" and will receive a music video
directed by film maker Darren Aronofsky
.
Conceptually, the album is based on Lulu - two plays originally written by the German playwright
Frank Wedekind
. A majority of the album's composition is centred around spoken word
delivered by Reed over instrumental
s composed by Metallica, with occasional backing vocals provided by Metallica lead vocalist James Hetfield
. Reed wrote a 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 generally negative reviews from most music critics and was widely panned. Review website Metacritic
listed the album as the worst of 2011.
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.
The collaboration was originally intended to be Metallica re-recording various previously unreleased tracks Reed had written over the years. Among these unreleased demos was a collection of songs composed for a play called Lulu—a theatrical production of two plays originally written by the German playwright
Frank Wedekind
. Reed shared the demos of these songs with the members of Metallica to help bring the "piece to the next level," and the group provided "significant arrangement contributions" to the material. David Fricke
of Rolling Stone
heard at least two of the songs from the project in June 2011—"Pumping Blood" and "Mistress Dread"—and described their sound as a "raging union of [Reed's] 1973 noir classic, Berlin
, and Metallica's '86 crusher, Master of Puppets
." All tracks were made available for listening on the official Lou Reed & Metallica website before its release.
reported that there was much negative reaction by fans online, and that the song had about twice as many "dislikes" as "likes" on YouTube
. Not all reaction to the song was negative; Rolling Stone gave "The View" a 4 out of 5 star rating while the same song was rated 4.5 out of 5 by Artist Direct and positively by One Thirty BPM. The album's second single, "Iced Honey" will receive a music video
helmed by Academy Award nominated director Darren Aronofsky
.
, which assigns a normalized
rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average
score of 41, based on 28 reviews, which indicates "mixed or average reviews". Staff reviewer Joseph Viney of Sputnikmusic
rated the album one and a half out of five and commented "The fallout from this could have dire consequences. A lot of people, already placing Metallica at the best seat in the house at the Last Chance Saloon have now called last orders. It's genuinely difficult to guess what their next move will be. As for Reed, his legacy, whatever that means in his case, is cemented and this will have no real effect on him." User ratings on the website have also been overwhelmingly negative.
Pitchfork Media
critic Stuart Bermaa signed the album a rare 1.0 rating, writing "for all the hilarity that ought to ensue here, Lulu is a frustratingly noble failure. Audacious to the extreme, but exhaustingly tedious as a result, its few interesting ideas are stretched out beyond the point of utility and pounded into submission." Essayist and pop culture writer Chuck Klosterman
, in his review of the album for the website Grantland, wrote, "If the Red Hot Chili Peppers
acoustically covered the 12 worst Primus
songs for Starbucks
, it would still be (slightly) better than this." Reviewer Julian Marszalek of The Quietus
gave the album a very poor review. He commented that "the effect is that of Lou Reed ranting over some Metallica demos that were never intended for human consumption." Marszalek summarized the review by suggesting that time spent listening to Lulu could have been better spent watching grass grow, "or perhaps wanking into a sock." Collapse Board summed up the experience as "the indulgent sound of the angst of millionaires", giving the record a largely negative review. Furthermore, longtime reviewer Don Kaye, who had previously defended Metallica's much-maligned 2003 album "St. Anger", wrote on Blabbermouth.net that "'Lulu' is a catastrophic failure on almost every level, a project that could quite possibly do irreparable harm to Metallica's career."
Uncut
gave the record a positive review, singling out the album closer "Junior Dad" for praise and calling it "breathtaking" and "astonishing", a "perfect ending to the most extraordinary, passionate and just plain brilliant record either participant has made for a long while." NME
, giving the record seven stars out of ten, praised it as "a surprising triumph", and said that the offering's "breadth and ambition is to be applauded. Metallica have performed way beyond what many thought them capable; they improvise freely as Reed’s musical bitch, while for him this marks his most outré offering since ‘Metal Machine Music’".The Telegraph awarded Lulu three stars out of five, stating that while the album was "grueling, even by latter Lou Reed standards," the sense of "unrestrained folly" and sheer lack of commercialism made the album feel "important". The German edition of Metal Hammer gave the album four out of seven stars. The reaction of the reviewer, Metallica biographer Joel McIver
, to the album was mixed. According to McIver, Lou Reed and Metallica had created an "avant-garde theatrical" soundtrack which is "not easy to listen to" and recommendable for Lou Reed fans. However Metallica fans "will mostly ignore Lulu—and listen to Master of Puppets".
(1975), they all fled. Who cares? I'm essentially in this for the fun of it." Lars Ulrich also noted the negative reaction to Lulu, and stated that he wasn't surprised by the criticism due in part because, "In 1984, when hard-core Metallica fans heard acoustic guitars on 'Fade to Black
', there was a nuclear meltdown in the heavy-metal community," and also noted that Reed's poetry is "not for everyone."
with first-week sales of 13,000 copies. The album's first-week sales is the lowest a Metallica album has sold in its debut week since Nielsen SoundScan
began tracking sales data in 1991. The album also debuted at number 36 on the UK Albums Chart
, selling 6,019 copies in its first week in the United Kingdom. Elsewhere, the album has so far debuted in the top 20 of the charts in seven countries.
Additional musicians
Additional personnel
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
, and heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
band Metallica
Metallica
Metallica is an American heavy metal band from Los Angeles, California. Formed in 1981 when James Hetfield responded to an advertisement that drummer Lars Ulrich had posted in a local newspaper. The current line-up features long-time lead guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo ...
. The album was recorded in San Rafael, California
San Rafael, California
San Rafael is a city and the county seat of Marin County, California, United States. The city is located in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area...
during April through June of 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 from the album, titled "The View", was released on September 27, 2011 to a widely negative reception on the internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
and failed to chart anywhere. The second single was announced to be "Iced Honey" and will receive a music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
directed by film maker Darren Aronofsky
Darren Aronofsky
Darren Aronofsky is an American film director, screenwriter and film producer. He attended Harvard University to study film theory and the American Film Institute to study both live-action and animation filmmaking...
.
Conceptually, the album is based on Lulu - two plays originally written by the German playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
Frank Wedekind
Frank Wedekind
Benjamin Franklin Wedekind , usually known as Frank Wedekind, was a German playwright...
. A majority of the album's composition is centred around spoken word
Spoken word
Spoken word is a form of poetry that often uses alliterated prose or verse and occasionally uses metered verse to express social commentary. Traditionally it is in the first person, is from the poet’s point of view and is themed in current events....
delivered by Reed over instrumental
Instrumental
An instrumental is a musical composition or recording without lyrics or singing, although it might include some non-articulate vocal input; the music is primarily or exclusively produced by musical instruments....
s composed by Metallica, with occasional backing vocals provided by Metallica lead vocalist James Hetfield
James Hetfield
James Alan Hetfield is the rhythm guitarist, co-founder, main songwriter, and lead vocalist for the American heavy metal band Metallica. Hetfield co-founded Metallica in October 1981 after answering a classified advertisement by drummer Lars Ulrich in the Los Angeles newspaper The Recycler,...
. Reed wrote a 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 generally negative reviews from most music critics and was widely panned. Review website Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
listed the album as the worst of 2011.
Background
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 HammettKirk Hammett
Kirk Lee Hammett is the lead guitarist and a songwriter in the heavy metal band Metallica and has been a member of the band since 1983. Before joining Metallica he formed and named the band Exodus. In 2003, Hammett was ranked 11th on Rolling Stones list of The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time...
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.
The collaboration was originally intended to be Metallica re-recording various previously unreleased tracks Reed had written over the years. Among these unreleased demos was a collection of songs composed for a play called Lulu—a theatrical production of two plays originally written by the German playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
Frank Wedekind
Frank Wedekind
Benjamin Franklin Wedekind , usually known as Frank Wedekind, was a German playwright...
. Reed shared the demos of these songs with the members of Metallica to help bring the "piece to the next level," and the group provided "significant arrangement contributions" to the material. David Fricke
David Fricke
David Fricke is a senior editor at Rolling Stone magazine, where he writes predominantly on rock music. In the 1990s, he was managing editor before stepping down.-Background:David Fricke is a graduate of Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania...
of Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
heard at least two of the songs from the project in June 2011—"Pumping Blood" and "Mistress Dread"—and described their sound as a "raging union of [Reed's] 1973 noir classic, Berlin
Berlin (album)
Berlin is a 1973 album by Lou Reed, his third solo album and the follow-up to Transformer. In 2003, the album was ranked number 344 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, though the publication had called the album a "disaster" 30 years prior.-Background and...
, and Metallica's '86 crusher, Master of Puppets
Master of Puppets
-Personnel:Metallica* James Hetfield – lead vocals, rhythm guitar, acoustic guitar on track 1, first solo on tracks 2 and 7* Cliff Burton – bass, backing vocals* Lars Ulrich – drums* Kirk Hammett – lead guitarProduction...
." All tracks were made available for listening on the official Lou Reed & Metallica website before its release.
Singles
"The View" was released for streaming online in late September 2011. Examining reaction to the track and a previously released 30-second preview of the same, The New Zealand HeraldThe New Zealand Herald
- External links :* * *...
reported that there was much negative reaction by fans online, and that the song had about twice as many "dislikes" as "likes" on YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
. Not all reaction to the song was negative; Rolling Stone gave "The View" a 4 out of 5 star rating while the same song was rated 4.5 out of 5 by Artist Direct and positively by One Thirty BPM. The album's second single, "Iced Honey" will receive a music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
helmed by Academy Award nominated director Darren Aronofsky
Darren Aronofsky
Darren Aronofsky is an American film director, screenwriter and film producer. He attended Harvard University to study film theory and the American Film Institute to study both live-action and animation filmmaking...
.
Reception
Upon its release, the album received generally negative reviews from most music critics. At MetacriticMetacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, which assigns a normalized
Standard score
In statistics, a standard score indicates how many standard deviations an observation or datum is above or below the mean. It is a dimensionless quantity derived by subtracting the population mean from an individual raw score and then dividing the difference by the population standard deviation...
rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average
Weighted mean
The weighted mean is similar to an arithmetic mean , where instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others...
score of 41, based on 28 reviews, which indicates "mixed or average reviews". Staff reviewer Joseph Viney of Sputnikmusic
Sputnikmusic
Sputnikmusic, or simply Sputnik, is a music website offering music criticism and music news alongside features commonly associated with wiki-style websites...
rated the album one and a half out of five and commented "The fallout from this could have dire consequences. A lot of people, already placing Metallica at the best seat in the house at the Last Chance Saloon have now called last orders. It's genuinely difficult to guess what their next move will be. As for Reed, his legacy, whatever that means in his case, is cemented and this will have no real effect on him." User ratings on the website have also been overwhelmingly negative.
Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...
critic Stuart Bermaa signed the album a rare 1.0 rating, writing "for all the hilarity that ought to ensue here, Lulu is a frustratingly noble failure. Audacious to the extreme, but exhaustingly tedious as a result, its few interesting ideas are stretched out beyond the point of utility and pounded into submission." Essayist and pop culture writer Chuck Klosterman
Chuck Klosterman
Charles John "Chuck" Klosterman is an American author and essayist who has written for The New York Times Magazine, The Believer, and The Washington Post, and has written books focusing on American popular culture....
, in his review of the album for the website Grantland, wrote, "If the Red Hot Chili Peppers
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Red Hot Chili Peppers is an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles in 1983. The group's musical style primarily consists of rock with an emphasis on funk, as well as elements from other genres such as punk, hip hop and psychedelic rock...
acoustically covered the 12 worst Primus
Primus (band)
Primus is an American rock band based in San Francisco, California, currently composed of bassist/vocalist Les Claypool, guitarist Larry "Ler" LaLonde and drummer Jay Lane. Primus originally formed in 1984 with Claypool and guitarist Todd Huth, later joined by Lane, though the latter two departed...
songs for Starbucks
Starbucks
Starbucks Corporation is an international coffee and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 17,009 stores in 55 countries, including over 11,000 in the United States, over 1,000 in Canada, over 700 in the United Kingdom, and...
, it would still be (slightly) better than this." Reviewer Julian Marszalek of The Quietus
The Quietus
The Quietus is a British online rock music and pop culture magazine, focusing on arts news, reviews, and features. The site is an editorially independent publication led by John Doran and a group of freelance journalists and critics, some of whom have worked for other media outlets...
gave the album a very poor review. He commented that "the effect is that of Lou Reed ranting over some Metallica demos that were never intended for human consumption." Marszalek summarized the review by suggesting that time spent listening to Lulu could have been better spent watching grass grow, "or perhaps wanking into a sock." Collapse Board summed up the experience as "the indulgent sound of the angst of millionaires", giving the record a largely negative review. Furthermore, longtime reviewer Don Kaye, who had previously defended Metallica's much-maligned 2003 album "St. Anger", wrote on Blabbermouth.net that "'Lulu' is a catastrophic failure on almost every level, a project that could quite possibly do irreparable harm to Metallica's career."
Uncut
UNCUT (magazine)
Uncut magazine, trademarked as UNCUT, is a monthly publication based in London. It is available across the English-speaking world, and focuses on music, but also includes film and books sections...
gave the record a positive review, singling out the album closer "Junior Dad" for praise and calling it "breathtaking" and "astonishing", a "perfect ending to the most extraordinary, passionate and just plain brilliant record either participant has made for a long while." NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
, giving the record seven stars out of ten, praised it as "a surprising triumph", and said that the offering's "breadth and ambition is to be applauded. Metallica have performed way beyond what many thought them capable; they improvise freely as Reed’s musical bitch, while for him this marks his most outré offering since ‘Metal Machine Music’".The Telegraph awarded Lulu three stars out of five, stating that while the album was "grueling, even by latter Lou Reed standards," the sense of "unrestrained folly" and sheer lack of commercialism made the album feel "important". The German edition of Metal Hammer gave the album four out of seven stars. The reaction of the reviewer, Metallica biographer Joel McIver
Joel McIver
Joel McIver is a British author. The best-known of his 20 books to date is the bestselling Justice For All: The Truth About Metallica, first published in 2004 and selling close to 50,000 copies in nine languages since then. McIver's other works include biographies of Black Sabbath, Slayer, Ice...
, to the album was mixed. According to McIver, Lou Reed and Metallica had created an "avant-garde theatrical" soundtrack which is "not easy to listen to" and recommendable for Lou Reed fans. However Metallica fans "will mostly ignore Lulu—and listen to Master of Puppets".
Band's response to criticism
Lou Reed has stated that Metallica fans have threatened to shoot him due to the collaboration on Lulu. In response to this and the overall negative reaction to the album, Reed commented, "I don't have any fans left. After Metal Machine MusicMetal Machine Music
Metal Machine Music, subtitled *The Amine β Ring, is the fifth solo album by Lou Reed. It was originally released as a double album by RCA Records in 1975...
(1975), they all fled. Who cares? I'm essentially in this for the fun of it." Lars Ulrich also noted the negative reaction to Lulu, and stated that he wasn't surprised by the criticism due in part because, "In 1984, when hard-core Metallica fans heard acoustic guitars on 'Fade to Black
Fade to Black (song)
"Fade to Black" is a song by the American heavy metal band Metallica. It was released as the first promotional single from its second studio album, Ride the Lightning...
', there was a nuclear meltdown in the heavy-metal community," and also noted that Reed's poetry is "not for everyone."
Chart performance
In the United States, the album debuted at number 36 on the Billboard 200Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
with first-week sales of 13,000 copies. The album's first-week sales is the lowest a Metallica album has sold in its debut week since Nielsen SoundScan
Nielsen SoundScan
Nielsen SoundScan is an information and sales tracking system created by Mike Fine and Mike Shalett. Soundscan is the official method of tracking sales of music and music video products throughout the United States and Canada...
began tracking sales data in 1991. The album also debuted at number 36 on the UK Albums Chart
UK Albums Chart
The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...
, selling 6,019 copies in its first week in the United Kingdom. Elsewhere, the album has so far debuted in the top 20 of the charts in seven countries.
Track listing
Charts
| Chart (2011) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Australian Albums Chart ARIA Charts The ARIA charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling singles and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA commenced compiling its own charts in-house from the week ending 26 June... |
33 |
| Austrian Albums Chart Ö3 Austria Top 40 Ö3 Austria Top 40 is the name of the official Austrian singles chart, as well as the radio show which presents it, aired Fridays on Hitradio Ö3. The show presents the Austrian singles, ringtones and downloads chart. It premiered on 26 November 1968 as Disc Parade and was presented by Ernst Grissemann... |
11 |
| Belgian Albums Chart Ultratop Ultratop is an organization which generates and publishes the official record charts in Belgium, and it is also the name of most of those charts... (Flanders) |
17 |
| Belgian Albums Chart Ultratop Ultratop is an organization which generates and publishes the official record charts in Belgium, and it is also the name of most of those charts... (Wallonia) |
14 |
| Canadian Albums Chart Canadian Albums Chart The Canadian Albums Chart is the official album sales chart in Canada. It is compiled every Wednesday by U.S.-based music sales tracking company Nielsen Soundscan, and published every Thursday by Jam! Canoe and Billboard, along with its sister charts the Canadian Singles Chart and the Canadian BDS... |
26 |
| Croatian Albums Chart | 4 |
| Czech Albums Chart | 4 |
| Dutch Albums Chart MegaCharts MegaCharts is responsible for the composition and exploitation of a broad collection of official charts in the Netherlands, of which the Mega Top 50 and the Mega Album Top 100 are the most known ones. Mega Charts also provides information to the Stichting Nederlandse Top 40, of which the Dutch Top... |
17 |
| Finnish Albums Chart | 16 |
| German Albums Chart Media Control Charts The official music charts in Germany are gathered and published by the company Media Control GfK International on behalf of Bundesverband Musikindustrie... |
6 |
| Irish Albums Chart Irish Albums Chart The Irish Albums Chart is the Irish music industry standard albums popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association and compiled on its behalf by Chart-Track. Chart rankings are based on sales, which are compiled through over-the-counter retail data captured electronically... |
36 |
| New Zealand Albums Chart Recording Industry Association of New Zealand The Recording Industry Association of New Zealand is a non-profit trade association of record producers, distributors and recording artists who sell music in New Zealand... |
12 |
| Norwegian Albums Chart VG-lista VG-listen is a Norwegian record chart. It is weekly presented in the newspaper VG and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation program Topp 20. It is considered the primary Norwegian record chart, charting albums and singles from countries and continent around the world. The data is collected by... |
11 |
| Portuguese Albums Chart Associação Fonográfica Portuguesa The Associação Fonográfica Portuguesa is currently the only recording industry association in Portugal. Created in 1989, it succeeded GPPFV and UNEVA .... |
8 |
| Spanish Albums Chart | 12 |
| Swedish Albums Chart Sverigetopplistan Sverigetopplistan, earlier known as Topplistan and Hitlistan and other names, is since October 2007 the Swedish national record chart, based on sales data from Swedish Recording Industry Association .... |
9 |
| Swiss Albums Chart Swiss Music Charts The Swiss Music Charts are Switzerland's main music sales charts. The charts are a record of the highest-selling singles and albums in various genres in Switzerland.The Swiss Charts include:* Singles Top 75... |
14 |
| UK Albums Chart UK Albums Chart The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart... |
36 |
| US Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists... |
36 |
Personnel
Band- Lou ReedLou ReedLewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
– guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, continuumContinuum (instrument)The Continuum Fingerboard or Haken Continuum is a music performance controller developed by Lippold Haken, a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois, and sold by Haken Audio, located in Champaign, Illinois....
, lead vocalsLead vocalistThe lead vocalist is the member of a band who sings the main vocal portions of a song. They may also play one or more instruments. Lead vocalists are sometimes referred to as the frontman or frontwoman, and as such, are usually considered to be the "leader" of the groups they perform in, often the... - James HetfieldJames HetfieldJames Alan Hetfield is the rhythm guitarist, co-founder, main songwriter, and lead vocalist for the American heavy metal band Metallica. Hetfield co-founded Metallica in October 1981 after answering a classified advertisement by drummer Lars Ulrich in the Los Angeles newspaper The Recycler,...
– rhythm guitarRhythm guitarRhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...
, additional vocalsSingingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
, lead guitarLead guitarLead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...
in "Junior Dad" - Lars UlrichLars UlrichLars Ulrich is a Danish drummer, and one of the founding members of the American thrash metal band Metallica. He was born in Gentofte, Denmark to an upper-middle class family. A tennis player in his youth, Ulrich moved to Los Angeles, California at age sixteen to pursue his training; though rather...
– drumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person .... - Kirk HammettKirk HammettKirk Lee Hammett is the lead guitarist and a songwriter in the heavy metal band Metallica and has been a member of the band since 1983. Before joining Metallica he formed and named the band Exodus. In 2003, Hammett was ranked 11th on Rolling Stones list of The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time...
– lead guitar - Robert TrujilloRobert TrujilloRobert Trujillo is an American bassist who currently plays bass in Metallica. He has also played in Suicidal Tendencies, Infectious Grooves, Black Label Society, and with Jerry Cantrell and Ozzy Osbourne.-Career:...
– bassBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
Additional musicians
- Sarth CalhounSarth CalhounSarth Calhoun is an electronic musician from Brooklyn, NY.He is a member of Lucibel Crater along with Leah Coloff and Paul Chuffo. He is also a member of Lou Reed's Metal Machine Trio, along with Lou Reed and Ulrich Krieger. He was previously a member of Number19.He plays continuum fingerboard and...
– electronics - Jenny ScheinmanJenny ScheinmanJenny Scheinman is an accomplished violinist. Renowned as a jazz violinist, she has credits with artists in many genres. She has collaborated and played with Linda Perry, Norah Jones, Nels Cline, Lou Reed, Ani Difranco, Bruce Cockburn, Aretha Franklin, Lucinda Williams, Bono, and Bill Frisell and...
– violinViolinThe violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
, violaViolaThe viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
, string arrangementsString sectionThe string section is the largest body of the standard orchestra and consists of bowed string instruments of the violin family.It normally comprises five sections: the first violins, the second violins, the violas, the cellos, and the double basses... - Gabe WitcherGabe WitcherGabe Witcher is an American fiddle player and singer, possibly best known for being a member of Chris Thile's band, Punch Brothers. Witcher started fiddling at the age of 5, and competed in Southern California fiddling competitions until he was 14...
– violin - Megan Gould – violin
- Ron Lawrence – viola
- Marika Hughes – celloCelloThe cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
- Ulrich Maas – cello on "Little Dog" and "Frustration"
- Rob WassermanRob WassermanRob Wasserman is an American bass player, who has played with a wide variety of musicians including David Grisman, Lou Reed, Bob Weir, Jerry Garcia, Bruce Cockburn, Van Morrison, Rickie Lee Jones, Brian Wilson, Elvis Costello, Mark Morris, Aaron Neville, Chris Whitley, Studs Terkel, Pete Seeger,...
– stand up electric bassElectric upright bassThe electric upright bass is an electronically amplified version of the double bass that has a minimal or 'skeleton' body, which greatly reduces the size and weight of the instrument. The EUB retains enough of the features of the double bass so that double bass players are comfortable performing...
on "Junior Dad" - Jessica Troy – viola on "Junior Dad"
Additional personnel
- Anton CorbijnAnton CorbijnAnton Corbijn is a Dutch photographer, music video and film director. He is the creative director behind the visual output of Depeche Mode and U2, having handled the principal promotion and sleeve photography for both for more than a decade...
– photographs for album packaging - Greg FidelmanGreg FidelmanGreg Fidelman is an American music engineer, producer and mix engineer. He has worked with many renowned and highly regarded bands in various genres, many in the heavier rock or metal genres, including Metallica, Slayer, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Bush, Audio Slave, Marilyn Manson, Slipknot, and...
– productionRecord producerA record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
, mixingAudio mixing (recorded music)In audio recording, audio mixing is the process by which multiple recorded sounds are combined into one or more channels, most commonly two-channel stereo. In the process, the source signals' level, frequency content, dynamics, and panoramic position are manipulated and effects such as reverb may...
and engineeringAudio engineeringAn audio engineer, also called audio technician, audio technologist or sound technician, is a specialist in a skilled trade that deals with the use of machinery and equipment for the recording, mixing and reproduction of sounds. The field draws on many artistic and vocational areas, including... - Metallica – production
- Lou Reed – production
- Hal WillnerHal WillnerHal Willner is an American music producer working in recording, films, TV and live events. He is best known for assembling tribute albums and events featuring a wide variety of artists and musical styles...
– production - Vlado Meller – masteringAudio masteringMastering, a form of audio post-production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device ; the source from which all copies will be produced...
at Masterdisk NYC