Lou Reed and Metallica created quite a stir when the unlikely titans announced they would be collaborating on an album together. Titled Lulu, and set to release worldwide on October 31 and in North America on November 1, it tells the story of an abused dancer, and is sure to be a sonically interesting mash up of two wildly different styles of music. 

Lou Reed and Metallica name their collaborative album Lulu.

Reed and Metallica first played together at the 25th Anniversary Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame concerts held in October 2009 in New York. The metal titans backed Reed on two of his classic songs, and the chemistry was undeniable. Initially setting out to get together with Metallica and play some forgotten Reed relics, the spontaneous singer decided at the last minute to have the band instead create arrangements to a collection of songs he had written that were inspired by stories by German author Frank Wedekind.

“We are free to go wherever,” drummer Lars Ulrich said in a recent Rolling stone interview with the metal giants and the gaunt godfather of the avante garde. “I’m obviously psyched for people to hear this, in whatever way we feel is right.”

In the same Rolling stone interview, Reed describes working with Metallica as “a marriage made in heaven”. The feeling is obviously mutual, as Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammet and drummer Lars Ulrich agreed that the marriage of the two sounds is strengthening the band musically, while lead-guitarist and front man James Hetfield foreshadows the unexpectedness of the album by demanding to be present when Reed lets listeners hear the album, just so he can “see the look on their faces.”