Lou Reed - Street Hassle

 

Reed's 8th solo album, released in 1978, is certainly one of his finer moments as a solo artist, even though he does affect an unusual singing voice for some of the numbers. Still, the songs'n'concept, as well as the playing'n'production are all among his strongest and most creative.

According to Wikipedia, some of these tunes were originally from live tapes with the audience muted and overdubs added, which I do not recall ever hearing before. Certainly has the earmarks of an odd'n'contrary Lou Reed-ism though!

The opener, "Gimme Some Good Times", does sound like the backing could have been recorded live and has Reed in his "new", warbly voice, duetting and talking back to himself on this Velvet-ish tune, followed by the powerfully dirgey "Dirt", which certainly sounds like the streets of NYC in the late 70's, as he rails against some unnamed someone who obviously hurt him (Wiki conjectures that at least some of the record is for his ex, Rachel) - and he references Bobby Fuller for hipster credit! 

The "Street Hassle" trilogy is absolutely one of his best compositions, based on a simple, repeating string motif (that moves to guitar and later to bass as the song evolves), it begins with "Waltzing Matilda", where Lou doesn't go too overboard with his vocal affectations and apparently it refers to a male hustler's female score, but it gets very dark in the "Street Hassle" section where a woman (the same woman with the hustler?) overdoses and the reactions are callous in the extreme, and the third portion, "Slipaway", is sadly romantic but funnily, since Lou had a line "tramps like us, baby we were born to pay", the producer asked Bruce Springsteen if Lou could use that line and Bruce ended up doing a spoken bit here! In any case, it all works as a lyrically vague, but musically powerful piece.

Not that Lou was ever very PC, but his "I Wanna Be Black" (again, this certainly sounds like it could have been taken from a live recording, although his Take No Prisoners version is even wilder) is extreme even for him, but also hilarious in the extreme, especially with the female backing singers answering his lines like "and have a big dick, too"! Oddly, he adds intense vibrato to the instrumental backing for an updated take on "Real Good Time Together" which blends into a hard-edged live backing track, and that kinda power-chord edge continues in "Shooting Star", a simply cruncher with, again, Reed's bizarre singing voice giving it extra added weirdness. Horns accentuate and add a jazzy feel to the pounding "Leave Me Alone" (maybe a hint of heavier Ian Dury here, in a way) and he closes with more horns in a mid-tempo, almost straight rocker, with "Wait" (nice "doo run, doo run day" backing vocals, too!).

Certainly strange and varied, but, especially considering that this came as the punk rock/new wave scene was gaining notoriety and I'm sure that Lou wanted to stay at the forefront of that movement and, if anything, be a bit weirder than they were, maybe it all makes sense. Regardless, some really good, well-written songs, and some excellent lyrics.