Lou Reed – Street Hassle

Street Hassle, oddly enough, is both: a confession of failure that becomes a stunning, incandescent triumph — the best solo album Lou Reed has ever done. Side one begins with an electrifying, Promethean challenge. “Sweet Jane,” that incalculably beautiful hymn to human endurance, has become the emblem of Reed’s decay, a sleazy, crowd-pleasing rocker. By trashing the song so completely at the outset of this record, Reed deliberately raises both the stakes and our expectations almost impossibly high.