Supriya Ghosh (Editor)

Street Hassle

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Released
  
February 1978

Artist
  
Lou Reed

Producer
  
Lou Reed

Length
  
36:15

Release date
  
February 1978

Label
  
Arista Records

Street Hassle httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediaenthumb0

Recorded
  
The Record Plant, New York City and live in Munich, Wiesbaden, Ludwigshafen, Germany

Street Hassle (1978)
  
Live Take No Prisoners (1978)

Genres
  
Rock music, Rock and roll, Punk rock

Similar
  
Lou Reed albums, Rock music albums

Lou reed street hassle full album 1978


Street Hassle is a 1978 album by Lou Reed, originally released by Arista Records. The album is the first commercially released pop album to employ binaural recording technology. Street Hassle combines live concert tapes (with overdubs) and studio recordings.

Contents

All of the songs on Street Hassle were written by Reed, including "Real Good Time Together", a track that dates back to his days as a member of The Velvet Underground.

The album was met with mostly positive reviews, with AllMusic's Mark Deming writing, "Raw, wounded, and unapologetically difficult, Street Hassle isn't the masterpiece Reed was shooting for, but it's still among the most powerful and compelling albums he released during the 1970s, and too personal and affecting to ignore."

Production

The studio tracks on Street Hassle were recorded in New York City, while the live recordings were made in Munich and Ludwigshafen, West Germany. Unlike most live albums, the audience is completely muted from the mix during the concert recordings.

Bruce Springsteen contributed spoken vocals during the "Slipaway" section of "Street Hassle", alluding to his own Born to Run album in the final line. At the time, the singer was enduring a three-year forced hiatus from releasing any of his own work due to legal disputes with his former manager, although he was in the process of writing and recording music for his forthcoming album Darkness on the Edge of Town, to be released in June 1978. Springsteen was not credited for his performance in the liner notes to Street Hassle, possibly due to his ongoing legal battles.

Binaural recording

The recording of Street Hassle was notable in that Reed and his co-producer chose to employ an experimental microphone placement technique called binaural recording. In binaural recording, two microphones are placed in the studio in an attempt to mimic the stereo sound of actually being in the room with the performers/instruments. In the case of the recording sessions and concerts that composed Street Hassle, engineers used a mannequin head with a microphone implanted in each ear. Binaural recordings are generally only effective when the user listens to the album through headphones, and do not generally translate correctly through stereo speakers.

Reed's particular binaural recording system was developed by Manfred Schunke of the German company Delta Acoustics; Schunke is credited as an engineer on Street Hassle. Lou Reed would continue to use the binaural recording style on two more releases: the 1978 concert album Live: Take No Prisoners and the 1979 studio album The Bells.

Songs and composition

As was common on early Reed solo albums, Street Hassle contained a song originally written during Reed's days in the Velvet Underground—in this case, "Real Good Time Together", which had been previously released in 1974 on 1969: The Velvet Underground Live.

AllMusic has written that "the title cut, a three-movement poetic tone poem about life on the New York streets, is one of the most audacious and deeply moving moments of Reed's solo career."

Reviews

Street Hassle was met with some positive reviews such as from Rolling Stone. Robert Christgau of The Village Voice, however, was lukewarm calling the album "self-serving" with muddled production and remarking, "like so many of his contemporaries, maybe he’d be better off not aiming for masterpieces." AllMusic's later review was more positive. Christgau later remarked that soon thereafter, starting with The Blue Mask, he did indeed start "churning out masterpieces."

Track listing

All songs written by Lou Reed.

Side One:

  1. "Gimmie Some Good Times" – 3:15
  2. "Dirt" – 4:43
  3. "Street Hassle" – 10:53

Side Two:

  1. "I Wanna Be Black" – 2:55
  2. "Real Good Time Together" – 3:21
  3. "Shooting Star" – 3:11
  4. "Leave Me Alone" – 4:44
  5. "Wait" – 3:13

Personnel

  • Lou Reed - guitar, bass, piano, vocals
  • Stuart Heinrich - guitar on "Street Hassle", background vocals on "Leave Me Alone"
  • Michael Fonfara - piano on "I Wanna Be Black" and "Shooting Star"
  • Marty Fogel - amplified saxophone
  • Steve Friedman - lead bass and background vocals on "Leave Me Alone"
  • Jeffrey Ross - lead guitar, vocals on live recorded tracks (uncredited in liner notes)
  • Michael Suchorsky - drums
  • Aram Schefrin - string arrangement
  • Jo'Anna Kameron, Angela Howard, Christine Wiltshire, Genya Ravan - background vocals
  • Bruce Springsteen - spoken word on "Street Hassle: Slipaway" (uncredited in liner notes)
  • Produced by Lou Reed and Richard Robinson
    Engineered by Manfred Schunke (live recording, Delta Studios, Berlin) and Heiner Friesz (live recording, Delta Mobile Studios, Berlin)
    Engineered and mixed by Rod O'Brien
    Gray Russell and Gregg Caruso - assistant engineers
    Mixed by Lou Reed
    Mastered by Ted Jensen at Sterling Sound

    Songs

    1Gimmie Some Good Times3:16
    2Dirt4:44
    3Street Hassle10:55

    References

    Street Hassle Wikipedia