sonic youth

Evol, and Sister are my favorites.

I've been slowly buying up their discog for the past couple years. I started with Rather Ripped, which remains my favorite, and have since picked up most of their 90's catalog. Daydream Nation's a close second out of the ones I own. I picked up A Thousand Leaves and Sister yesterday, then came home and noticed this thread. I just got started on Sister and have yet to hear anything from thousand leaves, but this thread's getting me revved up for it.

What do you guys think of Washing Machine? The first time I heard it I thought it was one of the worst albums I'd ever bought, but on the second listening I got hooked in. It's an ugly sounding album, but something about that makes it kind of intriguing. I was surprised at how well received it was in general. Albums like that aren't usually high up on the critic's darling list.

i'm not really sold on washing machine. that's actually the album that put me off sonic youth and made me think they were just an overrated indie jam band who don't even really know how to sculpt noise into something interesting a la fennesz or tim hecker or whatever.

i always knew daydream nation was a classic. hadn't heard most of their "poppy" work with butch vig, although i'd argue that those are some of their most abrasive albums. and then i bought washing machine based on the classic status of the diamond sea. i'm gonna go back and listen to that album now. i think my opinion will have changed a bit. i had to work through their early stuff to like their later work, although sonic nurse and rather ripped are both pretty easy to get into, imo.

See them live if you can, I've seen them a bunch of times. Each show was great and I can say hands down the best rock band I've seen. One show in particular was pure bliss. Washing Machine in person is quite a treat.

Ciccone Youth is fun too.

Ranaldo and William Hooker collabs are out of this world.

yeah i saw them playing daydream nation in its entirety last year, they were 100% excellent.

nah Washing Machine is an aberration really.

i saw them play one live and it was ok, basically thurston just strayed into pure noise territory at the end which looked like it was more fun for him than it was for the audience.

  On 7/17/2009 at 8:40 AM, lumpenprol said:

i saw them play one live and it was ok, basically thurston just strayed into pure noise territory at the end which looked like it was more fun for him than it was for the audience.

i dunno about you but i love when guitarists "noise out".

sure, if it's good, but I remember being a bit bored. In any case it wasn't one of my favorite performances.

In terms of rock, best performances I've seen by popular bands are probably Primus (countless times back in their early days), Pixies, the Cure, and David Byrne. Biggest disappointment was probably Jane's Addiction. Or Smashing Pumpkins (but I never liked them all that much to begin with)

  On 7/17/2009 at 10:11 AM, Mesh Gear Fox said:

For me A Thousand Leaves is one of their weakest. It's got some great songs but at the same time has some really, really awful tracks. Washing Machine is kind of similar in that respect, it has SY's worst song (Panty Lies) and their best (Diamond Sea)

I just listened to Thousand Leaves for the first time tonight, and thought it sounded like a slightly more polished Washing Machine. But I liked it substantially more upon first listening. I think it was the 4th track that had my favorite wall of noise section of any Sonic Youth song I've heard. That part was glorious. But after that there was about four songs in a row that really tested my patience. There are a lot of "let's just jam aimlessly for a while" moments on this album, but also a couple crazy awesome noise jamming moments.

Washing Machine sounds like experimental music in the truest sense to me, ie they weren't really sure what they were doing or if it would work, but they went ahead and did it to see what would happen. Some interesting results in there.

My first impression of Sister has been a good one. Very lively, spontaneous sounding album. You can feel the excitement in their performance, which is always a good sign. I can see why this one would be a favorite for some people. +Extra points for burping/coughing into the mic.

Dirty is a great album, probably my favourite SY. Get past the Butch Vig/post Nirvana Geffen's attempt to break SY to the mainstream context, and it's some of their best songwriting. It's also the first cd I ever bought, as in going into a record shop and handing over my own money, rather than getting a sister to buy it for me. Prior to this record shops were terrifying places. I can still remember the reaction of the guy behind the counter to a 12 year old buying a SY album.

the best part of dirty is the jewel case insert showing a couple shitting on/sexing stuffed animals

  On 7/17/2009 at 12:17 PM, lumpenprol said:

the best part of dirty is the jewel case insert showing a couple shitting on/sexing stuffed animals

i dont remember this?

  On 7/17/2009 at 1:17 PM, david said:

  On 7/17/2009 at 12:17 PM, lumpenprol said:

the best part of dirty is the jewel case insert showing a couple shitting on/sexing stuffed animals

 

i dont remember this?

It's hidden behind the plastic tray of the case, and was only for the first pressing of the CD. I'm pretty sure my copy has it, but it's probably been 17 years since I last looked.

well this thread has been good for one thing at least, making me feel ancient

  On 7/16/2009 at 6:55 AM, nene multiple assgasms said:

they're playing a free show at the st. louis arch this friday.

yeah, this is tonight... I'm debating whether to do this or not... I guess the only thing stopping me is the fact that I'm not really a Sonic Youth fan. They just never really grabbed my ear that much back in the day, unlike certain other rock-bands during that time period.

  On 7/17/2009 at 10:00 AM, lumpenprol said:

In terms of rock, best performances I've seen by popular bands are probably Primus (countless times back in their early days), Pixies, the Cure, and David Byrne.

YEAH!

Seriously though, Primus is fucking phenominal live. I've forgotten how many damn times I've seen 'em. I'm debating where to rate Colonel Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains because goddamn that was a great show...

  On 7/16/2009 at 5:50 AM, zaphod said:

i've never understood the kim gordon hate. "she ruins songs", "her voice sucks", etc.

this I can definitely agree with, despite an overall knowledge of most things Sonic Youth. I like Kimmy's voice.

I like Kimmy's sweet voice, or her spoken word voice, it's just when she does that tunelessly-barfing-out-the-words voice that I want to kick something.

I agree about Dirty being one of their strongest albums in terms of songwriting. On the one hand I imagine Butch Vig gave a lot of feedback, but on the other hand I can't see Sonic Youth taking kindly to a producer trying to rearrange their songs. I'd be curious to see how those sessions went.

holy shit guise. i think july/august will be my super sonic youth discovery months. there's so much stuff of theirs that i haven't heard!

RIP Thurston. Gone but not forgotten.

I really like Sonic and the Youths, I think my favourite stuff is Goo, Confusion Is Sex, EVOL, that kind of stuff. I really like everything they've done though.

I think my copy of EVOL somehow got mixed in with my housemate's reggae and breaks records because I can't find it anywhere!

  On 7/17/2009 at 12:17 PM, lumpenprol said:

the best part of dirty is the jewel case insert showing a couple shitting on/sexing stuffed animals

the best part of dirty is the fact that there are more tracks on the vinyl version

but unfortunately for me it marked the point after which i could no longer bare to listen to kim gordon's voice