10 November 2011
VVN Music
The news that Lou Reed and Metallica were collaborating on the new album, Lulu, was met with a lot of raised eyebrows from critics and fans of both artists.
That skepticism has been confirmed with first week figures for the album. According to Hits Daily Double, Lulu will sell around 13,250 copies (some industry sources are saying 15,000) copies in its first week, good enough to come in in the mid-30's on the Billboard Album chart. For comparison, Metallica's last album, Death Magnetic, sold 490,000 in its first three days of release.
It's pretty much the same around the world where the only top ten that the album made was in Sweden where it hit number 9 and it just missed in Norway where it was number 11. In Australia it debuted at 33 and in Britain at 36.
Reviews of Lulu have fallen on both ends of the scale with some lauding the stretch being taken creatively by both artists while others complain about what they feel is TOO much of a stretch and the dark nature of the material.
