Lou Reed, Street Hassle (side A)

I've heard a memorable story about 1978's Street Hassle, of a friend who used to cry every time that she listened, because it can be such an emotionally moving album.  In a way it's surprising, because Street Hassle marks Lou Reed's most overt dalliance with the more austere avant-classical tradition that was clearly part of his milieu in New York.  Juxtaposing a simple, near-spoken vocal with an incredibly repetitive string part, the eleven-minute title track resembles Robert Ashley's work as much as Reed's.  Yet Reed draws from the emotional impact of rock music, in both his lyrics and his performance, to achieve an impact very different from the detachment of Ashley's narratives.  The stylistic departures of Street Hassle also allow for a radical reworking of the old Velvet Underground song "Real Good Time Together", long before the original was officially released on Another View.  In addition to employing the radical binaural experiments of Manfred Schunke, who had previously worked with Sand on Golem, Street Hassle finds nearly every sound recorded very differently from the standard rock vocabulary.  A notable example is the snare drum on "Dirt", which is more wash than impact.  While the cover design hints subtly at the radical content, it looks in many other ways like a typical Lou Reed record, with a slightly-odd portrait of him on the cover.