Hassled In April

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The broadcast s included on this release showcases Lou Reed's eighth solo album, 'Street Hassle', which was issued in April 1978, during the most prolific period of the man's career. Lou Reed had embarked as a solo artist in the early 1970's, following his departure from the extraordinarily influential Velvet Underground. Every one of their four albums recorded during Reed's tenure with the group is included in Rolling Stone magazine's list of 'The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time'. Lou's own versions of two of the most commercially successful tracks from the fourth VU album, Loaded, are included here. After leaving the Velvets during the of Loaded in August 1970, Lou moved to RCA Records and issued his eponymous solo debut the following year. The follow-up, 'Transformer' (1972) and co-produced by David Bowie and Mick Ronson was a different matter entirely. It boasted an insistently memorable hit single in the shape of the marvelously affectionate tribute to the Warhol/Factory era, 'Walk On The Wild Side', a song that Lou reprises here, together with the glorious ballad 'Satellite Of Love' - surely two of the most widely known and best-loved songs in the entire Reed solo canon. The album was a triumph and really served to establish Lou Reed as a solo artist of considerable stature internationally. Lou quickly followed up with the much darker-hued and heavily orchestrated rock opera Berlin and what became his highest-charting album, Sally Can't Dance, which reached the Top 10 in the USA. Subsequent records Metal Machine Music, the more accessible Coney Island Baby and Rock And Roll Heart were not as well-received, before 1978's Street Hassle marked a strong return to form, with AllMusic's Mark Deming described the record as ""among the most powerful and compelling albums he released during the 1970s, and too personal and affecting to ignore.