I have a weird sort of respect for Lulu. It's utterly unlistenable stupid garbage, for sure. I don't think I've even got all the way through a single song. But I do respect Metallica in particular for making it. They tried something different, something weird, and something that most people were inevitably going to really fucking hate and that nobody was going to buy. I can guarantee you their record company didn't want them to make it, their management didn't want them to make it, but they fucking did it anyway because they wanted to for purely artistic reasons.
Any time some greasy fat double-denim thrash loser says that Metallica "sold out", remember Lulu. Bands that have "sold out" don't make albums like Lulu and don't collaborate with the man who made Metal Machine Music on an experimental thrash slam poetry album that probably appealed to exactly nobody but the musicians making it. I'd rather bands like Metallica experiment, try something crazy, something driven by what they want to do artistically, rather than just shit out the same album over and over like Slayer. Even though Lulu failed on every single level, I'm still glad it exists.
I'm not going to listen to it though. I don't respect it THAT much.