[3] It was recorded in San Rafael, California from April to June 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.

Lou Reed and Metallica had both been on the bill in October 1997 for the eleventh of Neil Young's Bridge School Benefit concerts.

[6] The conception of the collaboration project began in 2009 when both Metallica and Reed performed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 25th Anniversary Concert.

[10] Reed shared the demos of these songs with the members of Metallica to help bring the "piece to the next level,"[11] and the group provided "significant arrangement contributions" to the material.

[12] 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.

[14] Tempers flared a few times during the recording sessions, with Lars Ulrich admitting that at one point Lou Reed challenged him to a "street fight".

[20] Originally it was planned that Aronofsky should helm a performance video for the album's second single "Iced Honey"[21] but "when everyone got together, it became obvious 'The View' was the way to go.

"[35] Pitchfork critic Stuart Berman assigned 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.

"[31] Essayist and pop culture writer Chuck Klosterman, in his review 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.

In contrast to the negative reviews, J. R. Moores of Drowned in Sound gave the album a perfect score of 10 out of 10 and praised it as "the second greatest record ever made in the history of the human ear drum" after Metal Machine Music.

[39] In a review titled "Metallica and Lou Reed's 'Lulu' Is Actually Excellent", James Parker of The Atlantic wrote "I don't think the record is crap.

"[40] In the British avant-garde music magazine The Wire, David Keenan wrote, "Metallica's unrelenting sledgehammer style works as the perfect complement to Reed's vision of compassionless love" and concluded "[a]gainst all the odds, Lulu functions as the ultimate realisation of Reed's aesthetic of Metal Machine Music, cruel vulgar, half in love with power and pain but with a bruised, beating heart at its centre.

The Telegraph awarded Lulu three stars out of five,[43] stating that while it was "gruelling, even by latter Lou Reed standards," the sense of "unrestrained folly" and sheer lack of commercialism made the album feel "important".

[44] Indeed, The Wire's Jennifer Lucy Allan commented about the bad reviews: "ultimately, the reaction to it is a testament to Lou Reed's ability to still get up the noses and under the skin of even the most open-minded listeners.

"[46] In a piece published on the day of Reed's death, Robert Christgau wrote that Lulu "probably didn't get enough" "mazel tov" from critics.