Lou Reed has said his forthcoming collaborative album with Metallica is "the best thing I've ever done." So far, that comment is pretty much the most positive sentiment to greet Lulu, the strange-seeming project of the former Velvet Underground singer and the thrash-metal old timers. Today, "Loutallica" posted a 30-second snippet of the song "The View." It is, as all expected, weird:

Reactions to the track have ranged from acknowledgement to derision—we haven't seen a lot of praise for the track. The snippet's 30-second runtime hasn't prevented snark from accumulating around it. Lookie:

From indie-rock blog Stereogum:

Is Reed going to keep going with that overblown, half-parodic beat-poet vocal style all through the album? Did he really think it was a good idea to say the word "despises" like that? Is Metallica going to be in their Load -era turgid-riff style for the entire length of the album? And if this is the first 30 seconds of the album that everyone involved wanted us to hear first, then how bad is the rest of this shit going to be?

From the Albany Times Union:

On the plus side, this is so bad that we can, for the most part, avoid that lengthy and tired discussion about whether or not this band is "back" or still "has it."

Guys, please, just tour. Thanks.

From metal fan site The Gauntlet:

I really don't understand why Metallica hasn't sued themselves at this point as they themselves are the biggest threat to their financial stability.

The commenters on the song's YouTube page have been as vicious as you expect YouTube commenters to be. This comment on the Death + Taxes blog, though, is a little more interesting:

I don't know...sounds scary. Not "I'm frightened" scary but "Girl Talk could have just done this for them and at least it would have been danceable" scary.

Lulu is out October 31.
