LOU REED. METALLICA. LULU. WTF?

Gitmo, meet your new soundtrack!

I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way (other than the fact that I'm against torture).  But Lou Reed's unlikely double album collaboration with Metallica, Lulu, is one of the most abrasive albums I've ever heard, and one of the most difficult to sit through. I really admire the totally uncompromising spirit of the album: it is about as uncommercial as anything I've heard from a major artist in recent memory.

There's something admirable about a band like Metallica doing something so totally challenging to themselves and their audience (and Metallica must know that fans wouldn't like the idea of them collaborating with Lou Reed, and they'd like it less after hearing it).

That said, I don't really think I'll listen to this album too much. If I could go five years back in time and play Lulu for someone, they'd probably think that it was a Saturday Night Live skit making fun of what would happen if Lou Reed and Metallica did an album together.

In the years since Lou's classic 1989 LP New York, he's adopted a sort of atonal talking style of doing his vocals, and that's what he does here.  I'm a huge fan of his music, and I even like some of his post-New York stuff.  I liked his collaboration with his Velvet Underground bandmate, John Cale, Songs for 'Drella. Magic & Loss is an incredible album, but only if you're in a certain mood. But New York is the last Lou album that I just reach for because I want to listen to it again. Of course, he has a lot of great albums, and all the Velvet Underground LPs are incredible.  A lot of Lou's influences are avant-garde, outsider music.  But he's also influenced by doo-wop and Dion.  I'd love to see him to something you can sort of sing along to, and I thought this album might be that chance. But I again, I respect that he doesn't care what I, or anyone else, wanted with this album.

Metallica definitely do a solid job, but there's only so much they can do with this material.  I like the opener, "Brandenburg Gate," and also "Iced Honey," but that's kind of it.  I wouldn't mind seeing them do those songs in concert, with or without Lou.

I find myself wondering why Metallica agreed to this.  They definitely worked surprisingly well with Lou at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 25 anniversary concert in New York a few years back, they did a great version of "Sweet Jane." They must have been surprised to have been asked by Lou to do a record, and I'm sure it appealed to Lars Ulrich and Kirk Hammett (although James Hetfield is a fan of dark outsider music by the likes of Nick Cave and Tom Waits so it makes sense that Lou's music would appeal to him as well).  Still, Lulu makes St. Anger sound like "The Black Album," and they have to have realized that this would probably be the lowest selling album in their catalog.  But I guess they wanted to do something different and challenge themselves, and that's admirable.

I imagine that their next album will be much tighter, shorter and accessible.  In fact, I've heard that they will play "The Black Album" in its entirety at a European festival this summer. Well, if this album sends them in a more song-oriented direction, I'll be grateful for Lulu.

GUITAR WORLD'S 100 GREATEST (MY ADJUSTMENTS) (part 1)

Guitar World magazine's new issue features their list of the "100 Greatest Classic Rock Guitar Songs."  I think they put together a great list, with some great choices that, sadly, don't get played on what is known on "classic rock" radio, including Bill Haley & The Comets' "Rock Around The Clock, Elvis Presley's "Jailhouse Rock," Prince & The Revolution's "Purple Rain" and the #1 song, Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode."

As I often do, I create my own iPod mix to go along with the feature, with my own adjustments.   In some cases I switched one band's song with another (like with Led Zeppelin: I know "Stairway To Heaven" is, like, the most played song ever on classic rock radio or something, but I'm tired of it and I prefer "The Rain Song").  In other cases, I replaced some bands for others, creating my ideal classic rock lineup.  Not to be a snob, but on my planet, James Brown, The Stooges and The Clash are classic rock, whereas Kansas and Journey are not.  So, here's my list:

1. Chuck Berry - "Johnny B. Goode" Yeah, it's such an obvious choice (I prefer "Brown Eyed Handsome Man"... read the lyrics and replace "eyed" with "skinned" and it's a pretty radical song for the era).  But it's such an important song.  Not just in rock and roll, but in American culture.

2. Led Zeppelin - "The Rain Song" As I mentioned above, GW used "Stairway To Heaven," but, as much as I enjoy J.R.R. Tolkien's lore, which inspired the lyrics, it's sort of an overplayed song. "The Rain Song" resonates with me much more.  "Upon us all a little rain must fall." This song is as much about John Paul Jones' string arrangements as Jimmy Page's guitar though. But still, it's powerful and beautiful.

3. Jimi Hendrix - "I Don't Live Today" replacing "Purple Haze." I love "Haze," but it's another one that "classic rock" radio has driven into the ground.  "I Don't Live Today" is just as rockin', and is from the same album, Are You Experienced?

4. Guns N' Roses - "Sweet Child O' Mine" Overplayed? Hell yeah.  But when this jam came out in '87, you couldn't get enough of it.  Slash's riff was unbelievable, and he and Izzy Stradlin' were just such a great team. "Welcome To The Jungle" also made GW's list, but I kept Guns (and most other bands) to just one song.

5. Metallica - "For Whom The Bell Tolls" replacing "Enter Sandman." I love "Sandman," and I know it's where a lot of people discovered Metallica. I discovered them on a radio show called "Metal Shop," and "For Whom The Bell Tolls" was the song. I've never gotten tired of it. I have always loved James Hetfield's muscular rhythm playing.

THE MORALS OF METAL

Last night I made my return to The Busted Halo Show on SiriusXM's The Catholic Channel.  It was "Mellow" Matt's one year anniversary as the show's Board Operator, so I was invited to bring some of Matt's favorite music, heavy metal.  No problem.  Except that I had to have some kind of theme, beyond "Matt likes this music." A year and a half ago, I talked about Black Sabbath on Busted Halo, and I felt that went over well.  But I didn't want to repeat myself. 

Here's the thing about (some) heavy metal music.  It has a sense of consciousness, just like folk music, and a sense of outrage just like punk rock, but doesn't get much credit for either.  When I was a kid, though, I didn't really know much about punk rock and folk wasn't really appealing to me.  But there did seem to be a moral code to at least some records by Iron Maiden, Metallica, Anthrax and Megadeth. That struck a chord with me back then, and it still does today. I don't mind songs about cars and girls, but I also enjoy and appreciate when a lyric goes deeper. That's what was going through my mind over the past week when I was deciding what songs to use.

So the theme I came up with was war, and the effects of war on the people forced to fight.  When I first talked about Sabbath on Busted Halo, I used "War Pigs," which decried the fact that wealthy people decide that we need to go to war, but it's generally the poor who have to actually go and fight.

This time, I decided to use another Sabbath song, "Hand Of Doom," which, like "War Pigs," is on the 1970 album Paranoid. I've always interpreted the song about guys who came back from Vietnam and the damage they brought with them.  "Hand of doom" is code for heroin; some soldiers either got hooked on smack while in Vietnam, others started using when they got home.  The song doesn't glorify or moralize anything.  Because of Tony Iommi's fearsome guitar playing, you get the message that "hand of doom" is scary and not something you want to mess with. When people accuse Sabbath of being Satanists, I suggest they listen to this song.  Geezer Butler (who wrote the lyrics) wasn't trying to tell you want to think, just presenting a reality, and Ozzy Osbourne sounding as haunted as he ever would, delivered the song perfectly. To me, there's a great sense of moral outrage in this song.  How could we send people to fight for our country, and let them linger as empty shells when they come back, poisoned by heroin?

Next, I used Metallica's "Disposable Heroes" from one of the hugest albums of my high school years, 1986's Master Of Puppets. Metallica are taken for granted a bit now, as they are one of the biggest bands in the world, but back then they were very radical and underground.  This album was about the different things that control people's lives, mainly drugs and war. "Disposable Heroes" was about soldiers, and it struck me that at the time the album came out, America hadn't officially been involved in any wars, and hadn't been for quite a few years. As opposed to now, when you hear stories about soldiers from the various wars in the Middle East having problems re-acclimating to "normal" life. Metallica frontman and lyricist James Hetfield must have known some Vietnam vets, and made his own observations based on what he saw.  I'd love to ask him about this song.  In the lyrics, Hetfield doesn't have to point out that he cares about what these people were going through: the fact that he sings with such rage tells you all you need to know.  It's a subject that Springsteen has sung about, Hetfield and Metallica reaches a different audience. Maybe this song gave some people some ideas about the consequences of war. 

Finally, I used Alice In Chains' "Rooster," which Jerry Cantrell wrote about his father, a Vietnam vet, and all he went through when he returned home after the war.  The lines that resonate are "the bullets scream to me from somewhere" and also "they spit on me in my homeland." Jerry doesn't take a stance on war, but he shows from his first hand experience, what the after-effects are on people returning from war. It's a pretty heavy song.

When I was a kid, I felt that adults proclaimed heavy metal to be a depraved and angry form of music with no redeeming social value.  That was part of the appeal! But if you paid attention to the lyrics as I did (and I was not alone there), there was a lot you could get out of lyrics to songs like Iron Maiden's "Run To The Hills," Anthrax's "Indians" and Megadeth's "Peace Sells." (I'll probably write about those three songs in a later post.) I love the fact that these bands were able to get across ideas without slamming you over the head (lyrically, at least). While getting you to bang your head.