Street Hassle

Crossing the wrong side of the tracks, as most of Lou Reed’s albums do, 1978’s Street Hassle is the angrier, younger sibling to Reed’s eloquent, mature ‘New York’, released over a decade later.

The centrepiece of Street Hassle, the handsome, hypnotic and brutal title track evolves in three ‘symphonic’ movements, and is a powerful, theatrical precursor to Reed’s work with John Cale on Songs For Drella. Bruce Springsteen makes an uncredited spoken-word appearance in the last movement of the piece, Slipaway, and there’s even a touch of E-Street-type brassy groove on Wait.

An album teeming with the lyrical hell of drug addicts and desperate misfits, Street Hassle does possess elements of Reed’s pitch-black humour. Gimme Some Good Times playfully samples Sweet Jane, and Reed sings the strangely sunny words of Real Good Time Together against a morbid wash of distorted guitar effects and vocals.

A mix of New York studio recordings and fine live performances recorded in West Germany, Street Hassle is a curious and compelling coda to reed’s tumultuous and ever-changing ’70s word.